5 Ways to Love a Princess

Feeling whimsy today. Take this as you will.

You see, I’ve had some quite serious problems with my back. About June or July last year I started to get shooting pains in the outside of my calf and across the top of my foot. I have pains like these before. I thought it was the same thing. A little bit of sciatica. I was wrong.

Sciatica is where the sciatic nerve is pressed on, or squeezed by the bone or cartilage in your lower back. Although the injury is located at the back of your hips all of the sensation comes from the legs. Usually on only one side as the nerve is typically crushed or squeezed where it leaves the spinal column to make its way down to the foot.

It’s really quite unpleasant and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. Often a bit of rest and some stretching exercises, which help to free the nerve will see you on your way again. I should know, I’d been here before. As soon as the pain flared up I called my GP.

At the GP I quickly explained the symptoms and asked for a referral to a local physiotherapist. During an earlier bout physiotherapy had brought results and relief very quickly. Simply completing the exercises I had been given previously seemed unwise as I’m not medically qualified, or even knowledgeable. I wanted to get the nod before I started doing anything.

I saw the physiotherapist for a pre-assessment about a week later. He was great and we talked through the symptoms and joked about a couple of current events. Then he told me that he didn’t think I had simple sciatica.

That was the start of what’s been one of the most miserable, difficult and interesting experiences of my life.

To cut things short, I’m sure I wander through the whole story at some point just not today, I had an X-Ray and immediately after a CT-Scan. These revealed a pars defect and a small occult spina bifida. As well as what appeared to be some compression as a result of a recent fall.

This was the first time in my life that a medical professional sat me down and told me there was actually something quite seriously wrong. It was well done, but quite unpleasant.

The pain I was experiencing came from spondylolisthesis. Unsurprisingly I had precisely no idea what that was. A quick look at my X-Ray was enlightening enough. Two of my discs were shot to pieces, there was cartilaginous gloop everywhere. Later an MRI scan of the area would reveal that my L5 vertebrae was a mess. Better yet, most of the damage was caused by a congenital weakness.

I was born this way.

I suppose that didn’t really bother me. The Doctor was quick to explain that even if my condition had been known nothing would have been done about it. Tearing out perfectly good cartilage makes no sense so they would have waited until it had deteriorated anyway. The nature of the problem wasn’t my concern, what bothered me what what was to be done about it.

The Op

It was clear right from that first appointment in September 2010 that I was going to need a surgical intervention. That meant seeing a consultant who would agree to perform the surgery and then getting a hospital bed so that I would be able to receive it.

That’s a saga for another day. Suffice to say Mr Irfan Malik of Kings College Hospital London agreed to operate and I received the needed procedure 17th January 2011. A little longer that I would have liked but then I had neither private health insurance nor the £19,000 I would have needed to pay for the operation up front.

Let’s be clear about this. This is my life and my injury. I’m not resentful in any way. I have received life-changing surgery from an excellent surgeon at no cost. I remain an ardent fan of the NHS and much appreciate that my station and personal income was entirely irrelevant.

Now

I’m back on my feet again. more importantly my brain is abuzz.

One of the most terrible side-effects of the whole experience, partly due to medication, pain and the unbelievable tedium of inactivity was that my mind ceased to work properly. Throughout the whole experience I found it difficult to follow a thread of thought.

A good example is reading. Reading things online was still possible. Much of the internet is crafted for low attention reading and can be skimmed without much loss. Trying to read a book on the other hand became impossible. This was a real torture. I love reading. You would have thought that several months in bed or crawling around the floor would have been a good opportunity to get some reading in.

You’d be wrong. For almost six months I have been unable to follow the thread of a book from paragraph to paragraph. It’s weird. I can read the words, I can understand the sentence. I can follow one to the next, but I was absorbing nothing of what was happening.

I tried, I tried all the time, but was left frustrated.

After the operation, through to the moment that find me writing this, my mind, me if you will, has been slowly winding up to speed again. The emphasis on that sentence should be on ‘slowly’ mind you. I did write unbearably slowly but that’s not true. There’s a quite pleasurable relief that comes from waking up every day a bit smarter than you were the day before.

This morning I realised that I live with a princess

We’ve been married for several years and I am by no means a prince. But this wonderful woman who calls herself my wife is a twenty-first century princess. An extraordinary thing to be sure!

I supposed that if my wife though her quite kindnesses and endless gentle graces was a princess then other men like myself young and old might also be married to princesses. I thought I might talk about the experience for a moment and share some of the thoughts I have arrived at concerning how one ought to go about living with a princess.

Princesses are bold yet vulnerable creatures. They enjoy being caring and gentle, yet are often very much aware of the dangers and practical challenges that the world presents to them and those they love.

They are also inclined to love deeply, and perhaps sometimes a little too much. They believe in others with a strength that saps their energy when their belief is ill-rewarded.

5 Ways to Love a 21st Century Princess

1. Show her you lover her brashly and openly as well as quietly and secretly
2. Show her you think of her well and often, and of none other
3. Be a little jealous, a scintilla of jealousy is a marvelous thing for her to treasure
4. Grow to love and appreciate the things she loves and appreciates
5. Listen intently and remember her words more carefully than any others

Remember, no Prince has ever loved his princess too much, or too carefully and that the crazy singer was right, it’s a verb. Now get up and do something that she might else have to do and expect nothing for having done it. Repeat daily.