posted 01 November 2000 04:11 AM               

When I was 20 years old I was serving in the British Army in Germany. Don't ask my why I was there, I like to think of it as my moment of temporary insanity. You see I'm just not the Army type, I realised this and pretty soon they realised this as well, which is why I spent most of my time scuba diving.
I couldn't leave the Army as I had signed up as a tradesman with a clause that I would have to stay in for 6 years.

After a particularly hard fortnights diving in L'Estartit in Northern Spain I started to have a persistent bad back ache that I couldn't seem to shake. This went on and got steadily worse until I was admitted to hospital in Hannover, Germany.
Because of who I was and the situation I was in the medical staff did not believe me and thought I was 'swinging the lead' to get an early release from the Army and kept sending me back to work.
I was called a liar and forced to work although my boss realised there might be a small problem when I kept fainting from the pain.
I was put on bed rest and had to go to the stores to get a wardrobe door to carry back to my room to put under my mattress as it was so saggy.
My drugs of choice were Ibruprofen and Diazepam and had to rely on other people to bring food to me.
That was in February 1988. I finally had a Ridiculagram (the radioactive dye stuff injected into your spine) on July 13th and was diagnosed with a prolapsed disc L4/5.

I was finally given a Discectomy in Germany on August 8th. The operation, which involves removing the 'life' from the center of the disc causing it to go hard, went extremely badly due to negligence on the part of the junior surgeon who carried out the operation.

Because of the length of time it had taken to treat me I had pretty much lost the use of my legs through sciatica and had spent the month before the 'op' in a wheelchair.
I was flown back to the UK and admitted to another military hospital in London and was there having epidurals and more drugs until being transferred to a rehabilitation centre in February 1989 to help me walk properly again. All in all that part of my life took 14 months.

We now jump forward 6 years to October 1995 where life took an interesting turn at Gatwick Airport on the way to a holiday in Jamaica.
My back went again and this time I had a fairly good idea that it spelt trouble.
PAIN !!!
I have never felt such extreme emotions as when a disc is touching the spinal cord coupled with a constricted spinal cord running through the L5 laminar (The laminar is the hole in the vertebrae that the spinal cord runs through). My sciatic nerves were completely crushed and I was close to fainting whenever I had to move. Going to the toilet was always an adventure.
I was very quickly admitted to a wonderful hospital (civilian this time) in Harrow, London, and not long after had a Laminectomy L5/S1. Which as far as I can gather is similar to a Discectomy but this time the surgeon needs to remove the sides of the laminar with a laser to ease the restriction.
I was informed later that the surgeon had brought up the distinct possibility that I could lose the use of my legs.
After the second operation I went through a massive depression that culminated in the thought of a suicide attempt involving drugs and the River Thames on Christmas Day 1995.
Counseling and happy pills followed and since then I have tried to look to the future with an open mind. Yes, I have a degenerative back problem, yes, I spent pretty much the whole of 1998 in bed or in physio after turning on a light switch, but am I down hearted? Well yes, a little bit but it's all about the challenge. And it's all about learning to live with what you've got and channeling your energies into positive thoughts rather than the negative.

I would have rather things turned out differently in my life but what I have learnt is you can't change the way the wind blows and you can't turn back time, so there's no point in worrying about it.

Look forward, not back and remember you are not alone.

Thanks for listening, your comments are most welcome.