Plenty of people damage their back. It’s certainly easy enough to do – as I have now discovered! My own back damage happened early in June, when my work chair decided two years of me was plenty, and gave up the ghost. I didn’t even fall off it when it happened, but the jolt when it occurred was enough to cause one of my lumbar vertabrae to shriek into severe spasm a few days later.

The technical stuff? I have something called spondylolisthesis. One of my verterbrae out of alignment with the rest of the spine and was squashing the nerve, which was agonising! The local osteopath was – and is – extremely helpful. ACC was also helpful. Work was understanding and managed to cope without me. Which was good, because I was flat on my back in bed for two weeks. I got even more books read than usual – and not much writing or internetting done.

All things sexual were pretty much out of the question.

And that was a challenge. While my libido does vary, and there are times it goes into abeyance completely, this was not one of them. I wanted to touch. I wanted to be touched. And it was extremely difficult to do anything.

I didn’t dare pleasure myself. Even clenching my PC muscles made my lower back ache. An orgasm would have been … worse.

I discovered that I could, after a fashion, assist other partners in finding pleasure. But if I was giving a helping hand, I had to make sure it was only with wrist action, and not arm action that would jolt my side. And if I wanted to give a helping mouth, arranging things took on a whole extra level of complexity again!

As the weeks passed and my back did improve, I was able not only to go back to work, but also to slowly increase my sexual activity. I couldn’t exactly discuss this with my osteopath – he’s deeply religious and I figured out on the first visit this wasn’t going to be a topic to bring up – so I trusted my body and my knowledge of my sexual self on this one.

The first orgasm was very tentative. It was solo. And it was most pleasing.

The first penetrative sex, with my husband – the partner who’s known my body the longest – was very gentle and careful, and also led to an orgasm. And it was unexpectedly cathartic. I cried as we cuddled afterwards.

It’s been a month since the accident. I still ache, especially after a long day. But I have my strengthening exercises, and I have patience, and now have gotten over the fear that I’m broken. Because I made an interesting discovery, when I was laid up:

Even when I was challenged in how I could move, I could still give pleasure. I could rearrange myself in ways that meant I would not make my injury worse, and I could still be sexual with my partner/s. And I could, carefully, be orgasmic (eventually).

I am a sexual being. Even when I am a damaged one.

|  Curvaceous Dee