Saying No to the Culture of Death

Woe is me, why did I have to fracture my coccyx again?Since that fateful day when I slammed into the edge of the pool I have been in quite a bit of pain. The good news is that I can sit down for longer periods at a time, so long as the seat is not made of wood. 

We have just celebrated Christmas and that means going to Midnight Mass, but we have to be early to ensure that we get a parking spot in an appropriate place and of course there are Carols that precede the Mass for about 30 minutes. The wooden pews are not very friendly to my situation. So I greeted people at the door and wished them a Merry Christmas. This only adds strain to my back and feet, but I have to weigh up the situation and make my own decisions. The following morning I attended the 9.00 am Mass as I have been doing for several years. So, I get there early and greet the people at the door. I was also one of the readers but I let my partner carry in the Sacramentary and then he did the prayers of the faithful. In that way I did not have to mount the steps too often. Then, because there were not enough Ministers of the Eucharist I helped with that particular role, which is not so bad because I am moving around to the back of the church before moving to the front again, and that means that I am not standing still.

My exercises in the swimming pool are going well and I am trying to do as much as I can to ease the possibility of muscle spasm. However, nothing can stop the pain that comes on when there is a change of weather, especially in this Sydney humidity. Lately I have noticed the overwhelming pain in my back and feet a few hours prior to the start of the rain. I can be fine and then suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue I am in shocking pain and barely able to walk. Sometimes this causes my legs to feel a little on the weak side and when this happens I use my walking stick. Once the rain comes I am normal again.

This sensation is nothing new because I experienced this when I lived in Townsville for a year. What is new is the level of pain around the sacroiliac joint due to the stress and the strain that is brought about by the humidity. It hurts!! Now of course, all of the progress that I have made with my feet in the past two months has been stalled and I am back to very painful feet. I wonder if that has anything to do with the amount of walking that I have been doing since about mid-November. This week I achieved 10,000 steps three times in a row. On Thursday I managed over 11,000 steps plus my time in the hydrotherapy pool, which brought my total activity level to over 14,000 steps!! However, my feet are telling me that this is more than they can tolerate. They are aching like one thing, so I assume that the arthritis is active. This is no doubt a sign that more rain is on the way today. I am aching because of the increase in humidity levels here in Sydney. My back has not taken too kindly to the wooden seats again today but at least it is not hurting all that much.

One of the disadvantages of hurting where one has to sit down is that speed bumps and driveways have become a real pain. I have to go at a crawl to get over the speed bumps without jolting my bottom. It is the same with the driveways. It does not take much to cause pain when entering into a driveway, and I am talking about excruciating pain that causes me to wince and want to cry out from the shock of that pain. Surely the situation can only get better in the future, but until it does get better I have to get used to these pain levels.

If I thought that the wooden pews in the church were bad, then the plastic seats that are to be found in the hall are all that much worse. I cannot sit on the plastic seats for more than about 10 minutes at a time before the pain in my lower back begins to really start nagging. It is impossible to attend any function in the church hall, even though I have gone BYOC (bring your own cushion). I have a waffle cushion plus a round cushion placed together in a bag and I take that with me when going to Mass, but it does not provide relief inside the hall.