Back Talk: A Book for Bad Back Sufferers and Those Who Love (Put Up With) Them

Glynn A. Leyshon is a professor of physical education at the University
of Western Ontario, a former weekly columnist for the London Free Press
and author of 18 Sporting Stories.

When Eric Nicol writes a book, the reader’s funny bone is sure to
react. Back Talk is no exception. Nicol has made light of a common and
painful condition—a slipped disc—in a most entertaining way.
Chronicling his ailment from early days to final surgery, the author
finds the bizarre in unerring fashion and nothing escapes his rapier
wit. As he so aptly sums up, “the hospital-patient experience is an
introduction to humility.” Fortunately for us, Nichol kept a
meticulous and hilarious record of his tribulations, and while it may
not serve a utilitarian purpose, it would be a perfect gift for someone
contemplating, or already done with, a bout under the knife.

With eight chapters and an appendix (“ruptured”), this is not a
weighty tome, in which sense it matches its contents. It covers in those
chapters the “qualm” before the storm, the X-rated scenes, and the
myelogram (“the dye is cast”), taking us right up to the
post-operative finale, which includes advice on the frequency of sex for
those who have improved their “verticality.”

Nicol reserves some of his most biting material for the hospital and,
not surprisingly, hits on the food (the soup du jour becomes the soup
d’année and then the soup d’éternité), the non–English-speaking
nurses (“you dink,” a command to take fluid), and the warm and
caring physicians (“I’ll do this slowly. This scope cost $5000”).

For a 73-year-old, Nicol came through his ailment and the subsequent
attendant problems remarkably well. This book is a testimony to his
toughness and humor. May he win another Leacock award.