A prolapsed intervertebral disc. Graphic: Graphic News
Juila Day writes...
"You've had plenty of time to write your novel, then?" was the question most likely to have me spitting feathers last year when I was struck with the same back ailment as Tony Blair. If only. Thanks to a heady cocktail of hardcore painkillers, muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory drugs, not only could I not sit down long enough to tap out a bestseller, but I couldn't think, read or do much apart from dribble. I could have donned a hoody and set up a lucrative kerbside pharmacy though.
What did I do with all the "free time" I had last year while recovering from a squashed disc sandwich with dodgy bone filling - a couple of prolapsed, herniated discs with a slipped vertebrae in between? Well, fight the NHS mainly.
Forget the back pain, the leg pain, the inability to walk without looking like a spectacularly unfit 80-year-old and the wholesale wipe out of my "normal" life for a year. It was the pain of realising the NHS is simply unable cope with the thousands of people who live with constant, debilitating back pain that scarred me the most. That, and the time I forgot to wear "big pants" for an examination.
Becoming incapable of doing the previously taken for granted basics - running, sitting long enough to watch a film - was like living in an alternative reality, and in a way I'm glad it happened. It changed me a lot. I kept thinking: "If I can't face ringing the doctor/hospital/specialist for the umpteenth time this week, what chance does someone like my gran have?"
Once I had to make eight bus journeys to have one x-ray, because the hospital kept messing up. When I eventually saw the consultant he said the x-rays were useless because they'd not been taken in the correct position. The sheer frustration of trying to get someone to help me was the worst thing. But Tony Blair doesn't have to worry about that, does he?
Jettisoning principles I had held dear for 35 gloriously healthy years, after months of pain and still no NHS help (apart from the mind-altering drugs), I sold out and joined a private healthcare scheme. It's amazing what a spot of physical discomfort can do to one's ideals. I'll be sending my kids to private school and joining the local fox-hunt next!
PS: I'm now back to happily "running" along Brighton sea front pretending I'm doing more than fast-walking. Some things haven't changed at all.
Julia Day
