I was never in the army, but even in the Air Cadets we were quickly taught how to stand to attention. Back straight, chest out, tummy in, head high and look the person straight in the eye. At my height, I was just short of six feet tall. Now my back is bent, my legs stooped, my head droops, and I am several inches short of the youth I was. But when my CAT scan X-ray results came back this morning, all was explained. It seems that, besides the obvious lung node which has grown a little larger and a new secondary in the other lung, I also have a fracture in the lumbar spine. I did not remember breaking my back, for although I do now get some backache I attributed it to "wear and tear", or osteoporosis. It seems I do, indeed, have osteoporosis and the first lumber vertebra alone has lost 25% of its former height. When added to the spinal curvature it is no wonder I am somewhat shorter; but I have the perfect excuse now whenever I am told to "stand straight".
The back was not helped yesterday when I fell out of my chair. I have a good quality office chair, solid but comfortable, with a high back and sturdy arm rests. Unfortunately, I knocked something off the table, and leaned to the side of the chair to reach it; further, and further till I nearly touched it when "bang", my centre of gravity crossed a threshold and I was on the floor, legs still in the air wrapped round the chair. Annie came rushing in thinking I had fallen down the stairs; but only my pride was bruised. Unlike poor Annie who has been nursing a black eye all week; the bruise appeared spontaneously, probably because she is on blood-thinners, but everyone assumes it must be through my abuse!
We rose early this morning to drive through the first snows to Bury-St-Edmunds for the service at the Methodist church. I have somewhat swung away from organised religion, tending to the view that there is a spirit in all of us that wants to strive towards some hidden purpose, suppress it how we will, and organised religions of any sort serve to follow their set litanies or dogmas while ignoring the individual, independent mind. In contrast, Edwin and Andre have entered the life of their church fully: Andre now leads the church choir, and Edwin is training to be a lay preacher. In fairness, they are both very good; the choir under Andre's leadership is innovative and melodic, and this morning Edwin preached an excellent sermon. His training in drama and voice, and textual analysis, comes to the fore here; it centred on the day of Pentecost through history, which drew a number of complements from the symposium (oops...congregation) members. The vast majority are elderly, like us, although their numbers were much depleted today with the bad weather; yet coming home it was just wet as the snow and slush melt, with the usual deep puddles round Hundon where the drainage is always defective. The service is concluded with tea and biscuits in the meeting room, after which there are tables and chairs to clear away. I started to lift some chairs, but Annie leapt to my defence, emphasising that I must protect my back now, or I will end in a wheelchair. That would not be a good start to a new year, so I played the obedient husband rather than the macho man. Coming out of church, we were abused by a loud man shouting that he didn't believe in the trinity. Annie commented that, in all the years she had come out of a Catholic church, no one had ever shouted at her; now we had a miltant Unitarian objecting to the precipts of Methodism; this somewhat supported my assertion about fixed dogmas.
The back did not stop me later taking a box to a neighbour over the road; they have lived there for over five years now but somehow, she forgot and put the wrong house number on her order, so a couple of parcels were delivered to us, one some time ago and the last yesterday. I wonder, do many people forget where they live?
