My painful back twinges had almost subsided after three weeks without any exercises. So yesterday, I thought, 'new month, new resolve', a good time to return gently into exercising. A minute of holding the plank (rather than the usual ten); ten sit-ups and ten squats rather than the usual sixty of both. Two lots of back extension rather than eight or ten. Half the usual number of bird-dog extensions. So – taking it easy to get back into it.
But waking up in the middle of the night, those twinges returned. I can lie down, sit, stand or walk without pain, but moving from one position to another can result in a sharp spasm of pain. I wince; I curse.
This is worrying. Night is a bad time to worry – would it get worse and worse? Have I passed a threshold after which return to regular exercise is impossible?
About 27 years ago, I took a statutory medical examination ahead of taking on a new job here in Poland. My spine was X-rayed and the doctor told me my backbones were fusing together. She said that my spine would become immobile in old age. “Exercise and sanatoria” – the only things that could save me, she said. For the next 15 years or so, no symptoms. Then, one morning in June 2015, after a day walking around London, I woke up to feel numbness in the big toe on my left foot. In Warsaw, I called the clinic and was subjected to a barrage of tests to see, for example, whether a tumour wasn't pressing on a nerve somewhere. It wasn't – an X-ray revealed that it was indeed those bones in the spinal cord growing where they shouldn't be growing. Again, exercise was prescribed. Which I have been doing ever since, with a focus on maintaining core muscle strength and flexibility in my spine.
Earlier this year, I twanged my back doing something (I know not what!); several days laying off the exercise and I was back to normal. And again in early August, the same – but this time, the break from exercise did not solve the problem.
I worry about ankylosing spondylitis – did my father have this in old age? He was severely bent over in his nineties... This photo (he was 92 at the time) shows his characteristic posture. He could straighten up with effort, though he'd slump back to this default position. In his last years, he would take his afternoon nap lying flat on his back on the hard wooden floor, no pillow.
My great fear for old age is immobility; my daily walks are a source of joy and inspiration, especially on sunny days, at dawn, at dusk, any time of year. Losing the ability to keep on walking would be a terrible blow.
But sitting still, there's no pain, I'm not thinking about my back. Until a sudden sound below and to my left – it's Memfis ('Fisia') playing with a ball on the kitchen floor. I turn – and a sharp spasm (nothing too painful) shoots across from my lower back.
Time, I feel, to arrange a visit at the doctor's surgery to have all this checked out. I don't fancy a whole lot more new medications to go alongside the ones for my heart, but would be keen to learn about specific exercise protocols that might do the trick. After all, I still have more than eleven thousand days before my 100th birthday!
This time last year:
Early-September sunset moods
This time eight years ago:
Early-September travel news
This time nine years ago:
Fields filling up with houses
This time 16 years ago:
Battle of Britain: Poland's contribution
This time 17 years ago:
Sewer under ul. Karczunkowska
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