I’M grumpy, snappy and incredibly irritable at the moment.

So you have my apologies. As does everyone in fact who has to ‘put up’ with me at the minute, because to be quite frank, I’m just not myself right now.

All thanks to my beautiful back which just does not want to play ball at the moment or do anything in fact. It’s not very happy you see.

Not happy at all currently, which means it hurts to sit, stand or lie down. Thank goodness for Nurofen and hot baths ey?

My back ‘predicament’ all began a few years ago when I was about three months pregnant with Elsie. I sat up in bed one morning, sneezed and that was that.

Whatever went wrong then, went wrong with a passion, leaving me unable to move for about four days or even get myself to the toilet. Yes folks, it was pretty grim.

Back then it took about six weeks before I could hobble around and get back to some kind of normality.

And although it was probably one of the most awful times of my life (having bad pregnancy sickness and severe back pain was absolutely no fun as you can imagine) as with everything, some good came from it, mainly in the shape of this blog being born.

Pouting In Heels was definitely the silver lining.

Since then it’s never been quite right. An odd twinge here, an odd twinge there. A little irritating but manageable.

But then….You know what’s coming right?

Yep then, about five weeks ago, I picked up Elsie to plonk her in her car seat and bam. My back got angry. Again.

Thankfully, it’s nowhere near as bad as it was years ago. I can get about for starters which I regard as an absolute blessing.

But at the moment, it hurts, a lot, most if not all of the time.

And I am sick of it.

It’s not often I let things get the better of me. I’m pretty resilient and generally a positive, ‘bounce back’ (pardon the pun) kind of gal, but yesterday was a struggle.

Yesterday I felt low, miserable and incredibly sorry for myself.

Back pain (or indeed any kind of pain) is seemingly no good for personal morale and it got me thinking about people who have to live with it every day. People who have to live in agony or fight serious health issues, day in, day out.

How do they do this?!

To make things absolutely clear, I am well aware that I am very blessed and that this is hopefully just a lasting irritating bout of back trouble.

And I know that there are many people who have it a million times worse than me and let me tell you, those people -who struggle every day, who have to live with pain on a daily basis- those people are my heroes right now.

Because being in pain changes you. It affects your mood, your self esteem, your independence and your ‘get go’. And fighting it, remaining positive and trying to solve it, takes an enormous amount of determination and dedication.

That is a lesson I am currently learning. A challenge I’m trying to live up to.

It’s hard to be positive, warm and friendly when you could scream with the pain or when you can’t sleep well because it keeps you awake.

And it’s much easier to slide into a pit of despair and self pity. But that of course, achieves nothing.

It’s a funny ol’ thing good health. When we have it we never appreciate it. Perhaps don’t even think about it. Yet when we’re struggling with pain or some illness, all we can think about and all we want, is to be well and ‘normal’ again.

Right now for example, just being able to pick Elsie up and give her a huge cuddle would make me feel ecstatic.

That day will come, I’m damned sure of that, but meanwhile I’m doing my best to remain positive, continuing with physio and keeping my fingers crossed that this back pain saga is just an unpleasant health blip.

I’m continuing to count my blessings  (because I still have so many) and I’m hopeful that this back pain will disappear as soon as possible.

Because between you and I, it really is fast becoming a right ol’ royal pain in the neck.

 ——-

With love,

Kate

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