Sciatica: Trying to Kick Yer

I’m still struggling with sitting but I can now walk without a stick and put weight back on the offending limb. It is conscious-making pain. I’ve never even considered the nerves running though my legs. I didn’t even know what a piriformis was.

   Initially I fashioned a stick out of the hoover tube, but R drew the line at going outside like this, so bought me a walking stick. This was interesting. As I struggled along I suddenly saw loads of people with sticks. If I hadn’t been in so much pain I would have high-fived them.

   Now I can do stairs and walking. I still can’t imagine running, jumping climbing trees. I am slow. And I’m not a slow person; I’m a fast walker usually, late, urgent, whizzy. But alas, no longer. Now, I don’t so much saunter, nor do I plod; I have that special deliberate walk of the very elderly. Everything is considered, measured. Small steps. Sometimes I feel like I’m not moving, that’s how slow I’m going. I have promised myself never to be impatient behind a Slowy again.

   I am blessed with a wonderfully kind spouse. I have been a hideosity; huffed and sighed and sworn, shrieked and moaned. I wouldn’t want to live with me at the moment.

   I am stretching, the NHS way. Oh yes, I now know where my piriformis is. When I first saw these stretches I laughed at the possibility of ever doing them. Since my meds have kicked in I’ve been performing them slavishly, twice a day, and following my father’s advice, hanging off our chin-up bar. I did at first also poo-poo this as too athletic but apparently his doctor told him to hang from a tree branch and he tells me he was cured within two hours. (This may mean he hung from a tree branch for two whole hours!)

   On day four I went for a sports massage with the magical Elisa. The usual five minute jog to her house took me thirty minutes. The massage was great, painful in a positive way and I am gradually improving. Advice to self: whenever I see a suitable tree branch I will hang off it and I promise to keep my piriformis stretchy.

Opportunity: Short Stories Needed for Lipreading Project

Fancy doing something useful with one of your stories to help people learn to lipread? Why not write a story for the Lipreading Project. Successful stories will be read aloud on a free website, as a teaching aid for people learning to lipread.
   I have submitted and really enjoyed the challenge of writing outside of my comfort genre and my linguistic territory. No fantasy, no made up words, good grammar; it needs to be easy to follow, so just a tight dramatic story. We all have creative crutches and it was healthy for me to cut down my tricksy word play and magical-realism. Good to not rely on a flying baby or a talking dog too.
   I initially thought I’d dust off an old story to submit, but even when I think I’m original my stories have recurring fantastical elements, although I’m happy to say I’ve finally got over my dragon addiction. It was also a relief to be writing something other than my novel, which continues to slowly spew in random episodes and that I know I’ve got to re-impose coherence onto, when I can bear to. Short stories are instant gratification but often don’t see the light of day so this is a way of hopefully getting one out there, in a really valuable way.
  Click here for the project’s remit and how to apply. It lays out the benefits better than I can, plus the terms and conditions and submission form. Please help make learning to lipread more fun with a gripping tale. Go on, send something off!

Flash: Breaktime

I, of course, get the round in. We’re in the Magician’s Shoehorn; neutral territory.

W looks at me across the beer sticky table. Sadness? Pleading? I can’t quite read his expression. I set the drinks down.

‘So?’ W asks. He is irritatingly attractive. Seeing him makes me want to jump back in but at the same time I’d like to run out of the pub.

‘I do miss you,’ I say.

W sighs. Just the noise of his breath aggravates me. 

‘But?’ He keeps letting sentences hang. I want to correct every word he utters.

 ‘That doesn’t mean you don’t drive me mad.’ I tell him.

'I was always going to be a challenge.' He laughs in that way he does, where I never know if he’s laughing with or at me. ‘I’m yours if you want me,’ he says.

I take a sip of beer. ‘I don’t know what I want at the moment.’

'What are you telling people?’ W asks.

‘That we’re having a break.’

He nods calmly.

I want more of a reaction, so I carry on. ‘And that I’m more into the visual arts at the moment.’

W slams his drink down. ‘That’s what you're calling it? Visual-bloody-arts!’

‘They do say a picture can paint a thousand words.’

W smiles unpleasantly. ‘Have you seen your drawing?’

‘Are you saying you’re any better?’

‘No…yes. Yes, I am. I’m as good as you’ll let me be. You’ve just got no tenacity.’

I groan. ‘This is exactly why we shouldn’t carry on.’

W pushes his chair back. ‘I could walk out of this pub and never see you again. Just birthday and Christmas cards.’ He stands up.

‘No, no, I don’t want that, please. I do love you, I’m confused. I think I need a bit of space.'

W sighs again. This time I’m less irritated. He sits back down heavily. ‘I suppose we’ve been very intense.’

‘You could say so,’ I agree.

‘It’s been all-consuming,’ he says.

‘And occasionally suffocating,’ I say.

W smiles at me. ‘We could go back to just Tuesday nights, like the old days. We could make it fun again.’

‘Okay...’

‘And maybe Sunday afternoons?’

‘Erm, yeah…’

‘And possibly Friday nights… if you’re not doing anything else.’ W reads my face, ‘or possibly not.’

‘Shall we try Tuesdays?’

W reaches across the table and takes my writing hand in his. I feel myself melting. ‘The main thing,’ he says, ‘is that we remain friends.’