The sorry tale of a lockdown injury

There has never been a better time to visit an A & E department. If you live in Weston super Mare or surrounding villages anyway. That was my experience last Sunday and Monday, when despite all the warnings, as well as my strong inclinations to avoid further strain on our beleaguered health system, I had cause to spend the best part of two days inside one.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, and hindsight and detective work are wonderful things. At times during those two days I was very worried indeed, whereas now I just seem to have an injury that (I hope) is going to be no more than mildly irritating for a while.

So let’s start in the middle. Last weekend I planned to go out for a hilly ride on the Sunday, good weather was forecast, and I could do all of it whilst being no more than 30 minutes ride from my front door. In preparation I fuelled up on pasta in the evening, and as I prepared to go to bed I had a few jiggly stomach pains that I put down to indigestion. I was tired anyway, so off to bed I toddled, looking forward to getting out first thing.

At about 7AM I was rudely awoken by a sharp pain in my lower abdomen, followed quickly by another. Then another. It was if, I imagined, someone was sticking knitting needles into my side, near where my appendix had been removed some 30 years ago. I stumbled out of bed, and the pain intensified, so I got back into bed, and they got worse again. My normal reactions to minor illness is to inflate it into something serious, but this felt serious so I tried to down-play it in my mind.

After about 15 minutes this strategy appeared not to be working, so I knew a bike ride was out. After another 15 minutes I decided to burden the NHS and phoned 111. By now the pain was constant, and I was a bit worried. So was the out of hours GP, who arranged for me to go and see a doctor at an out of hours surgery. This doctor was also worried enough to send me to A & E at the hospital.

I’ll spare you the full SP. Suffice to say I was seen by a succession of people, repeating the same information over and over, having my abdomen prodded again and again, till at last, a student Doctor, albeit under supervision, diagnosed a problem with my gall bladder, I almost certainly have gallstones he said.

I was sent home with loads of painkillers as they were not doing x-rays or scans that day, and they were sure I wasn’t in any danger. I found the painkillers went very well with a bottle of Thatchers and the pain subsided.

By the way, the hospital was deserted, kind of. Very quiet anyway. As it was the next day when I limped in to the X-ray department to have an ultrasound scan. Where we discovered I have a perfectly functioning gall bladder with no trace of stones or anything else that shouldn’t be there. And a very healthy intestine, pancreas, liver and spleen, and an aorta which would look good in a 30-year old.

So far so comforting. But what was wrong with me as I was still in pain, of the dull ache variety, if not the knitting needle category. Another wait ensued before I got to see a thoracic surgeon, late on Monday afternoon. More prodding, coughing, etc. Gentlemen will understand this is not pleasant. Woman can imagine,  but I’m sure experience far worse. Don’t write in.

The final diagnosis? A tear in the oblique muscles of my right-hand side. The treatment? Generally a lot of rest and no twisting or turning or heavy lifting. Painkillers and cider to moderate the pain. Sort of.

Just to be clear, that is not a picture or image of me. I have a bit more timber around the six-pack, and I’m also now sporting a fetching beard. 

So how did I come by this weird injury? I think I’ve pieced it all together in hindsight so that it now seems obvious. Well, I hear you say, if it was obvious, why didn’t you realise and not bother our overwhelmed NHS at a time of national emergency. To which I say, stick some knitting needles into yourself, just east of your tummy button and see how clearly you think.

I blame someone else obviously, for back in February I did do a minor injury in that area, when my PT, a Spurs fan but otherwise a great bloke, forced me to lift weights purely beyond my weedy capability. I took it easy on that front for a couple of weeks and didn’t think anything of it.

I also had a slight ache in that area the Friday before as I cycled up the 14% gradient of a narrow lane near Burrington, but again, put it out of my mind amidst everything else going on. Surely, neither of those two were enough to bring this on?

They were not, and the cause of the trip only became apparent on the Friday just gone, as I walked around Sainsbury’s buying our now weekly shop, fresh food mainly, and such is the appetites here in Mendip Rouleur Towers that I fill the trolley to the brim. I have also discovered the “joy” of that scan-as-you-go gun thing, and devise a system of bag-filling to make life “easier” when I get home and have to unpack it all. Anyone compulsive will understand. What a capacity we have for creating new first-world problems.

 One thing we seem to have an insatiable appetite for in our house is Diet Coke.  And it won’t go in shopping bags in the cases I’m buying it in, so I decided to put those in the trolley first.  At the front. Then go back to the start of the social-distancing journey and get the fresh food. Now bear in mind, this is 5 days after my hospital experience. I’ve done no exercise, the pain has subsided to a dull ache and I’m looking forward to some wheeled excitement at the weekend. No not the trolley. The bike.

I round the corner of the shopping aisle, and it being a trolley, the front-filled Diet Coke loaded thing goes one way as I go another. Instinctively I go to counter balance and get the knitting needles in the side again. The trolley comes to rest against the dried pasta and tomatoes, fortunately everyone is two metres away, no harm done to fellow shoppers. Because I let go of said trolley, no harm done to me either.

Then I remember. Last Saturday, just before my pasta-meal, I’d been lugging a similarly-laden trolley around. Could that have been the straw that tore the camel’s obliques? Quite possibly, I’ll never know for certain, but it seems likely.  I tried a gentle walk later yesterday afternoon, and this morning I’ve woken up with more persistent pain. I’d come off the painkillers on Thursday, now I think the cider might have to make a comeback. We’ll see.

So clearly I have a lockdown injury and the years of home delivery have taken their toll. I need to work more on my core. My legs are fine, they can tackle the gradients OK, I just need to utilise that aorta And toughen up in the middle. I think. There’s going to be some gentle exercise tomorrow, but for now if anyone has any tips, let me know. On this type of injury please, not on shopping, core strength training or cider.