Spinal probe

This week, if a certain pain in my spine gets worse, I might have to see a doctor and get a referral for an X-ray.

I last saw a company doctor for an illness about 4-5 years ago, so I might find sitting in the waiting-room a novel thing. I hear it could either be a slipped disc or a tumour in the spine that's hitting a nerve.

The strange thing is, the first time my spine hurt this bad, was shortly after an Alpha session last month. It hurt whenever I sneezed, or tried to stifle one. I couldn't turn my neck. Then the pain slowly subsided. But last Wednesday evening after Alpha, while lying down in bed it started to hurt again.

The only thing I did each week was to help shift two big tables - but there's always someone else helping me and it's only for a distance of a couple of metres. And really, it was an easy task. So I don't know if something's trying to deter me from doing God's work, or whether it's just an accumulation of bad seating posture, weird sleeping positions and moving house.

Anyway, the after-effect of knowing something was possibly wrong with my spine, was that my back muscles are all tensed up now, even when I try to relax. So now half my back is acheing. I'm trying to tell my body to ease off, there's no point cramping up now but it won't listen.

However, I will be (for the first time in my life) skipping this Wednesday's session because we're having a housewarming-cum-birthday dinner for my beloved grandmother. I wanted to turn up for the pre-Alpha prayer session but was told it was not a good idea as I was needed at home right after work, and surely Church people would be more forgiving than that?

So that's that. I'm using this Wednesday's absence to monitor my back - whether the pain will appear again on that day. And I'm still contemplating whether to turn up for another Alpha session that clashes with my birthday. But since I won't have many people around to celebrate with, I'm wondering what's the point. I'm getting older than I ever thought I would be.