Fourth of July in Cardiff...No fireworks, no flags, but a celebration of sorts nevertheless.
As you're no doubt tired of hearing, I've been nagged by back pain for several years now. It has increasingly affected my life and activities for longer than I care to remember. For all intents and purposes I have stopped going places that require me to walk or stand upright. I've hated it, hated it, but I couldn't afford to do anything about it until I got that golden Medicare card in May.
The back specialist I saw told me that I didn't require needles or knives, but that I needed to do three things: Lose weight (surprise, surprise), exercise and go wheat-free. Wheat, goes his theory, is a leading cause of inflammation and by eliminating wheat from my diet I'd be promoting weight loss as well as removing the cause of a lot of my leg and back pain.
Because I was desperate to get out of pain, I would have done anything, so going wheat-free was not really a sacrifice. I went cold-turkey on May 13. No bread, no cookies, no pie, no gravy. It wasn't long before I started noticing a difference.
Today I observed a milestone: I went to a museum. And my back allowed it!!
OK, I did sit several times along the way -- to gaze upon a Rodin sculpture or some lilypads by Monet -- but it was so I could enjoy the beauty, not because I was writhing in pain. The absence of pain was remarkable. I mean, this was HUGE! I can't recall the last time I was able to walk through a store, let alone a museum, without feeling like I was being stabbed in my back and legs by a heathen invader.
I'm not quite ready to climb down off my martyr's cross and give away the wood,. And I'm not declaring the National Museum of Wales as a holy site for future pilgrimages. But I'm cautiously optimistic that this wheat thing is working.
Freedom from pain -- at least for the time being: On this fine July Fourth, I'll take it!
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