Blog

Remember this injury? That turned permanent? It even has a name now – thought of Priscilla, Celia or Brunhilde, but instead, it’s apparently a variant of Golfer’s Elbow and all without even playing that pointless game. It got aggravated. In fact, it got downright testy and has gotten progressively worse on a weekly basis for quite a while now to the point where I had to take most of last week off to sit fairly still in the hopes of preventing something major. Of course, by the time I sat still, it was too late and it turned into one of those cascading injury things, where one thing leads to another and before you know it, your entire body is fucked.

Yes, this again. I’m running out of ways of describing it in an interesting/amusing manner. Am I the only one bored with the subject? (don’t answer that!)

Anyway! Just before the long weekend hit, I decided to drag out the big guns and had a chat to my doctor about a steroid shot. Which brings me (finally) to my point. Assuming I even have a point, which after a week of very big painkillers and a lovely long weekend of doing not much may be hard to attain. As my doctor was helping me get out of my sweater so she could jab my shoulder and I was helping the process along the way I normally do that particular movement, she remarked that perhaps if I moved slower, I wouldn’t hurt as much. She’s mentioned this before and I’ve waved her off before. Because although she may be right, I don’t have time to move that slowly. Of course, it could be argued that I don’t have time not to move that slowly, but I’m ignoring that for now.

My snorting dismissal of this idea of moving more slowly made me think about time and how I use it.. I’m not going to bore you with the details, but the highlights are that I spend at least four hours of the day directly catering to my disability and/or pain levels. And that’s not taking into consideration that other things I do, like e.g., making a cup of tea, that takes about double the time it does for someone not me and then there are the regular things, like household chores, buying groceries, eating, volunteering and…. My friend Andrew once called me the busiest unemployed person he’s ever met and now I’ve added another 4-5 hours of work to my day – naturally without taking anything out – and perhaps it’s not surprising that my body is having trouble keeping up.

But if I’m honest with myself – and there’s no point to things if you you’re not (as my father used to say, it’s OK to lie to yourself, as long as you know you’re lying to yourself) – it’s not just about all the things on The List. I’ve always moved fast and I still move fast (or as fast as I can). Because moving slowly would bore me senseless. I have attendants who can spend 15 minutes washing two pots, a cutting board and a few pieces of cutlery and by the time they’re done, I want to scream and tear out my hair because if I were doing it, it’d be done faster. But I can’t do it, so I wait and grit my teeth and think about the time running out like sands through the hourglass… wait. We weren’t talking about soaps. We were talking about full days, moving fast and how that contributes to injuries.

At this point, I’m on my third rewrite of this post. I couldn’t figure out what my point was, until I mentioned the thing about being honest with yourself, because I hadn’t been about this particular something. Which was how my life, activity level and even the way I move contribute to my pain levels and increases the chance of injury. Not something I’m thrilled to delve into because that means I have to take a look at my limitations. Aside from admitting I have some, if I actually tried to work within them, the inevitable conclusion is that I ought to take a number of things out of my day. And naturally, they’re all essential, right?

That’s the lightbulb moment for the day. Took me a really long time to get there and I’m deeply uncomfortable with admitting it, but this is one of the blessings of having a blog. Not only can you work through your issues without trekking to a therapist’s office, but when you do so publicly, it creates a bit of pressure to actually do something about any realization you may have had.

I’ll keep you posted. But for now, I need an ice pack and some codeine.