Rescue mission

Elongate and twist (gently). Elongate and lean. Elongate and tip. I’ve been repeating these instructions as a mantra all day following Lu’s advice last night.

Trying to sleep was painful. I often roll around a lot in bed; think of a dolphin barrelling through a mega-shoal of sardines. I couldn’t do it without shooting pain so eventually forced myself to root on my back. During the night neighbours could be forgiven for thinking my yowls of pain were someone getting murdered. Apologies to them.

In the afternoon a friend dropped off some ibuprofen and coffee; the two most welcome substances by that point. Through the day I focused on standing like an awkward robot on video calls, and tipping to realign whatever has caused the trapped nerve. I managed to clamber into the bathtub to shower which was a major achievement compared to the state of me 24 hours prior.

In the evening, a knock on the door and I descended the flat stairs gingerly. The couple next door had got their key jammed in the barrel of the front door lock, with them outside, phones stuck inside and dinner in the oven. I fiddled with it too, applied some WD-40, tried to not jar my back even more, but the key wouldn’t budge. They resorted to using my phone to call the fire brigade to gain entry, which seemed like a fair option as no one wanted an overdone chicken to burn the block down. The fire engine arrived in about two minutes and removed a panel from their front door. An emergency joiner could have done the same but when I mentioned that beforehand the neighbours didn’t know what a joiner was.

Crisis averted and I went back indoors to continue tilting and elongating my spine.