Feeling pretty lousy actually, especially since two days of sightseeing in Macau on the weekend. I feel the way I felt before the ops - all spasmed up to the mid-back.

I can't even exercise because of the pain. Lying on my stomach and arching my back is especially painful. This wasn't the case a few weeks ago. I suspect that my L4-L5 joint is weak and inflamed, so my strategy is to wait for the spam to wear off (helped by showers and heat packs and rest) and then start gentle exercises again. I don't want to take anti-inflammatories as they are supposed to interfere with the fusion.

I also should mention that I have some pain lying on my left hip on a hard surface. I can't figure that one out. This has been with me for about a month.

Surprisingly, I am sleeping pretty well. Perhaps it's because I'm exhausted and it's the holidays and I'm not sleeping in the afternoons (except today). Now that I am well rested, I am going to try and exercise my left rotator cuff again and see whether I can shake my shoulder problem with the help of the physio who's working on my neck / shoulder. Previously, the lack of sleep meant I never had the heart / energy to exercise enough.

I started physio two weeks ago. I am doing physio for my back twice a week and physio for my shoulder and neck twice a week with different physios. I hope that by separating the two, I will get both attended to adequately. In addition, I am doing floor exercises at home twice a day during the week and three times a day on the weekends.

Having been told that physio would work 5 years ago, and having seen it fail before, I was initially sceptical.

However, after two weeks, I have made progress to the point where I can see that one day I will be almost back to normal (yay!) and already don't think so much about my back. I can twist and arch my back with much less pain than two weeks ago. My right hip still goes pop and pains / aches still come and go.

My knees still hurt but I have largely stopped wearing the knee braces. This is partly because my knees feel a little better (or is that my imagination?), partly because they used to rub against the back of my knees, partly because they were a pain to bend over and put on, and also partly because my back physio told me that research had found them to be ineffective.

Let's see how the weekend goes, because that is normally the worst.