A pain in the back...

Desney's been working on the laundry/computer room for weeks. She's been repairing walls, floors, filling-in holes and painting days and nights for weeks to get it up and running and ready.

All this because I got a new computer rack, off of eBay, and I took all of the computer equipment out of the room to put the rack in. I got the rack several weeks ago. Photos and info later once it's fully up and running.

Desney finally finished the room on Saturday night and I knew Sunday morning we were finally going to be able to put the rack in and I was going to be able to start putting all of my equipment back in to one place. During the waiting period I had purchased a new rack-mounted Smart Gigabit switch and a new rack-mounted UPS both of which I have been dying to put in to place.

Desney helped me get the rack down the outside stairs and we relatively soon realised that even though it fit between the walls it wasn't going to fit down the stairs with the angles it had to go through. We then tried taking it upstairs, through the front door and down the back kitchen stairs. We had the same problem. It got stuck about half way down the stairs. I then had to accept that I was going to have to take it apart, take it downstairs in pieces and put it back together again in the computer room.

Sometime during all of this process my back started hurting. During one of these upstairs, downstairs, downstairs, upstairs manouvers I had pulled something in my lower back and it was getting worse and worse as time went by. But I had disconnected all of the network in the house and I knew I had to at least get everything plugged back in even if it was only temporary. I spent a few hours building the rack again as there were no directions and the pieces all got mixed up. I finally got it back together and it was time to start putting the equipment in it. By this time I couldn't even bend down let alone pick things up. I get Alexandra to come and help and I was able to get everything connected and up and running... I spent the rest of the evening in agony as I could no longer straighten up. I could only lift my back to a position whereby my back was parallel to the floor... no higher.

After a very uncomfortable evening of restless sleep I crawled out of bed, screaming in pain all by myself, and had a huddled-over shower and breakfast and headed down to my office. I knew that if I could just get in to my chair, and in front of my screens, I would be able to work. I couldn't go anywhere as we were expecting a delivery of a compost bin for the garden and I had to be here to receive it. The delivery arrived relatively early and I crawled up the stairs, let the man drop it off in the front yard and crawled back to my office.

I desperately called my chiropractor and was lucky to get an appointment for 16:30. I worked in my office, without moving, for the rest of the afternoon and took a taxi to the chiropractor's. He was more shocked by my new moustache and goatee than by my position. He can still remember seeing my like this years ago. We went through the symptoms and I was glad to learn that it wasn't my sciatica come back to haunt me. It was "only" a pulled ligament and classic lumbago. I couldn't move without yelping in pain so he gave me an injection of anti-inflammatories so he could at least do some placement work. He put everything back in place and I could miraculously stand up and walk. I was still hurting and sore. But I was upright again. I felt as though Ernest Angley had miraculously smacked my forehead and I was healed. He put a back belt on me, the same as I have at home but couldn't get on in the morning as I couldn't move, which held me in place. He prescribed a bunch of anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and pain killers and sent me home. He warned me that this wasn't over. I would need to wear the belt for a fortnight no matter how good I felt and I was going to feel worse before I felt better again. I have to avoid all "brusk" movements, can't lift anything, should stay horizontal or immobile as often as possible and on and on. The painful aspects are no alcohol for while I'm taking the anti-inflammatories and muscle (about 10 days) and no sex for about 5 days. Boring...

When I walked through the door I was in pain again. This was mostly due to sitting in bump and go traffic, in a taxi, for about an hour. I lied down, with a pillow between my legs, and was "ok" for dinner.

Today has been OK as I haven't had to move much... It's going to a long couple of weeks...

It ain't cancer but it's certainly a pain!