(no subject)
Jan. 23rd, 2011 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelCurrent inventory of pain:
- right hip 1/10 (was 3/10 before moving)
- back can't tell
- neck ow/10
- head 4/10
- weird sharp pain on outside edge of right hand about half an inch above wrist: 1/10 if I am not using hand, 5/10 otherwise
#
Yeah so um. I try to avoid bowel movements on alternate weekends. The aide that I have is not very good at getting me clean enough. She wipes shallowly, and I try to tell her to go farther forward and farther in, and she ... wipes in the exact same damn spot. She's more or less capable for other stuff, but I reeeeally try to avoid bowel movements. (Yes, even to the point of holding one in for a day, which is unhealthy as fuck but whatever.)
But sometimes a bowel is going to move whether it's convenient or not.
Now, because I am not wiping myself, and because I am not what one might call skinny (especially in the butt), and because my body is fixed in a leaning-back position, wiping cannot occur while I am seated on the toilet, because it isn't possible for my aide (even the one that is awesome about getting me super clean in there) to get their hand in. So what happens is I stand, using two canes as support, for as long as it takes to get me clean, sitting down when I literally can't stand any more. (I try to avoid sitting and restanding because each time I sit and stand back up, it gets harder.)
Now, here's the thing about me and standing. I have what is quite possibly one of the awkwardest fucking standing postures ever. Let me try to describe this in words: Knees are more or less fixed at approximately ninety degrees. Ankles are fixed with feet pointing slightly down (I forget whether that's flexed or the other thing, and I am too lazy to switch to another window to go look it up). Hips are fixed at about sixty degrees. I have no balance control whatsoever (adjusting for balance rather requires movement) so in order to be stable, I have to be at least a tripod: two feet and then a cane, or two canes (one for each hand), with my body mass centered over the midpoint, and since the cane(s) are in front of me, ...
... you know, this isn't working. Let me sum up: Take someone who's never done the relevant activities and tell them to get in a skiing posture, but en pointe (without the special fucking ballet shoes) and leaning really far forward.
Except there is a slight additional problem of my arms, wherein my elbows are fused halfway bent, which is lovely for typing (if I have the right height desk my hands are in a perfect place for a keyboard, given a keyboard that has the two halves with about four or five inches between them, which mine does, but that's a digression) but not very lovely for supporting body weight. Think of gymnastics: a gymnast balancing their body will have straight arms, not bent ones.
The human body is not built to stand the way I stand; if I take most of my weight on my legs, my thighs start to burn in about twenty seconds. It is also not built to support itself on a cane the way I do; if I take weight on the cane, or on both canes when I'm doing a dual-cane situation as I was tonight, my arms and chest start to burn.
Only tonight it got ... epically bad. (epicly? ep... whatever.) My chest muscles and upper arms were burning hard, my head started to pound horribly, and I managed to gasp out that I needed to sit because I was quite afraid I would literally collapse on the spot and/or start throwing up. (Usually I give "I need to sit" warnings when things start to hurt, with enough leeway that if I'm told it won't be that much longer I can do it. This ... was not that.) Sat down, and it felt like I was breathing ... I don't even know what, but the air didn't feel right. Not like trying to breathe in a vacuum, but like the air wasn't air, or something.
Yeah. That was a very not pleasant few minutes.
(I'm mostly better now, except for the lingering ache in upper chest muscles and the tension-or-something-type headache that's also radiating down my neck.)
(oh, and my hands are shaking.)
#
Current inventory of pain, half hour after last inventory:
- right hip 3/10 fuck it all. no wait, 4/10. stupid thing.
- back 1/10
- neck 3/10
- head 3/10
- weird hand pain: 1/10 if I am not using hand, 5/10 otherwise, with the exception of typing, which appears to not be a problem. wtf, hand.
(and my roommates are not here to help me get painkiller and I didn't think of asking my aide because I was still trying to figure out wtf was going on with my body -- there are times that you are too busy going "ow" to remember that there are medications that can help with that -- and I think I need something stronger than ibuprofen but I don't have anything dammit and I can't go to the doctor because I can't go anywhere and I think I am going to start crying.)
- right hip 1/10 (was 3/10 before moving)
- back can't tell
- neck ow/10
- head 4/10
- weird sharp pain on outside edge of right hand about half an inch above wrist: 1/10 if I am not using hand, 5/10 otherwise
#
Yeah so um. I try to avoid bowel movements on alternate weekends. The aide that I have is not very good at getting me clean enough. She wipes shallowly, and I try to tell her to go farther forward and farther in, and she ... wipes in the exact same damn spot. She's more or less capable for other stuff, but I reeeeally try to avoid bowel movements. (Yes, even to the point of holding one in for a day, which is unhealthy as fuck but whatever.)
But sometimes a bowel is going to move whether it's convenient or not.
Now, because I am not wiping myself, and because I am not what one might call skinny (especially in the butt), and because my body is fixed in a leaning-back position, wiping cannot occur while I am seated on the toilet, because it isn't possible for my aide (even the one that is awesome about getting me super clean in there) to get their hand in. So what happens is I stand, using two canes as support, for as long as it takes to get me clean, sitting down when I literally can't stand any more. (I try to avoid sitting and restanding because each time I sit and stand back up, it gets harder.)
Now, here's the thing about me and standing. I have what is quite possibly one of the awkwardest fucking standing postures ever. Let me try to describe this in words: Knees are more or less fixed at approximately ninety degrees. Ankles are fixed with feet pointing slightly down (I forget whether that's flexed or the other thing, and I am too lazy to switch to another window to go look it up). Hips are fixed at about sixty degrees. I have no balance control whatsoever (adjusting for balance rather requires movement) so in order to be stable, I have to be at least a tripod: two feet and then a cane, or two canes (one for each hand), with my body mass centered over the midpoint, and since the cane(s) are in front of me, ...
... you know, this isn't working. Let me sum up: Take someone who's never done the relevant activities and tell them to get in a skiing posture, but en pointe (without the special fucking ballet shoes) and leaning really far forward.
Except there is a slight additional problem of my arms, wherein my elbows are fused halfway bent, which is lovely for typing (if I have the right height desk my hands are in a perfect place for a keyboard, given a keyboard that has the two halves with about four or five inches between them, which mine does, but that's a digression) but not very lovely for supporting body weight. Think of gymnastics: a gymnast balancing their body will have straight arms, not bent ones.
The human body is not built to stand the way I stand; if I take most of my weight on my legs, my thighs start to burn in about twenty seconds. It is also not built to support itself on a cane the way I do; if I take weight on the cane, or on both canes when I'm doing a dual-cane situation as I was tonight, my arms and chest start to burn.
Only tonight it got ... epically bad. (epicly? ep... whatever.) My chest muscles and upper arms were burning hard, my head started to pound horribly, and I managed to gasp out that I needed to sit because I was quite afraid I would literally collapse on the spot and/or start throwing up. (Usually I give "I need to sit" warnings when things start to hurt, with enough leeway that if I'm told it won't be that much longer I can do it. This ... was not that.) Sat down, and it felt like I was breathing ... I don't even know what, but the air didn't feel right. Not like trying to breathe in a vacuum, but like the air wasn't air, or something.
Yeah. That was a very not pleasant few minutes.
(I'm mostly better now, except for the lingering ache in upper chest muscles and the tension-or-something-type headache that's also radiating down my neck.)
(oh, and my hands are shaking.)
#
Current inventory of pain, half hour after last inventory:
- right hip 3/10 fuck it all. no wait, 4/10. stupid thing.
- back 1/10
- neck 3/10
- head 3/10
- weird hand pain: 1/10 if I am not using hand, 5/10 otherwise, with the exception of typing, which appears to not be a problem. wtf, hand.
(and my roommates are not here to help me get painkiller and I didn't think of asking my aide because I was still trying to figure out wtf was going on with my body -- there are times that you are too busy going "ow" to remember that there are medications that can help with that -- and I think I need something stronger than ibuprofen but I don't have anything dammit and I can't go to the doctor because I can't go anywhere and I think I am going to start crying.)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-24 05:17 am (UTC)