For months now I have been suffering from sciatic pains in my back and legs. At first I was treating it through exercise and physiotherapy, then I tried acupuncture. But the pain continued to get worse, and I was finding it difficult to sit or stand or walk for any length of time. In our daily scrums at work, I had to sit down rather than stand up. Then one day I got up, showered and dressed, and headed out to work, only to turn back after walking about 20 feet. I've seen several doctors about it, had an X-Ray and an MRI. The X-Ray showed that my spine was a little too straight. The MRI showed that I have a desiccated or slipped disc in my lower back. I've now been signed off work for four weeks.
I've never been off sick for anything like that length of time before. When the pain is particularly bad, especially in the mornings, I find myself reluctant to move much beyond the confines of my little flat. If I go for a walk to the shops at the bottom of the road, the next day I feel unable to do much beyond lie on the floor and watch television. I'm now waiting on an appointment with a neurosurgeon to see what can be done to fix my back. I've been prescribed various pills - two painkillers, a muscle relaxant, an anti-inflammatory, and now something to help with constipation. (Constipation being a side effect of the other pills and the lack of movement.) It's all little disheartening! I've suspended my gym membership until I can walk to the gym more easily.
All this free time does mean I should be able to make good progress with Cinnabar, so the goal over the next couple of weeks is to be able to generate basic, unstyled web pages containing arbitrary content. I'd also like to get basic site navigation in place. I can only work on it for short periods at a time, as sitting is still painful.