davidgillon | Daysleeper....

Second attempt - first one swallowed by a browser crash at the weekend.

So a couple of weeks ago I managed to bounce the car off a kerb. Took a bend a little too tightly in the dark and rain, and clipped the kerb at the apex. Car bounced sideways into the middle of the road, and my lower body went with it. Upper body, not so much. Fortunately there's three lanes at that point due to a filter lane for a turn opposite so I wasn't in danger of hitting anyone. The car was undamaged, but my L1(-ish) joint, was less than happy. My back seems to have mostly settled down now, but I had several days where the pain spiked enough for my body to go 'Ugh, sleep now' (even past the opioids), And when I sleep during the day, I don't sleep at night, and when I'm in pain during the day I don't sleep at night either (technically it's due to persistent activation of the fight-or-flight loop in the hippocampus). Which means I've been reset into sleeping during the day and being awake at night. This is less than ideal. I can usually shift it a couple of hours a day back towards a normal cycle, but at the cost of being tired and sleepy all day (and occasionally ratty). And everytime I go flump in the middle of the day I have to start again.

Also not helping was my night out at the pub last Tuesday. It's a fortnightly quiz I do regularly with a group of friends. It's not a large pub, and it's a popular quiz. I got there at 7:30 for a 9 o'clock quiz, and every table was taken. Fortunately my friend Maria had already grabbed one, but it wasn't the one we usually get and the easiest place for me to manouevre into in the chair was on the aisle leading to the gents loos. There was space to get past, I physically couldn't get any further forward, my footplate was against the bar under the table, but you would have to slow down to avoid hitting me. Which of course isn't on the mind of people heading to the loo. Over the course of three hours every guy to go to the loo, which would be pretty much every guy in the pub, hit the back of my chair both going and coming back. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that probably reached triple figures. My back was really not happy, and by the end I was about ready to bite someone's head off, but that wouldn't have helped so I held my tongue. Needless to say I didn't sleep at all last Tuesday. (And we didn't even win the quiz to make up for it. Bah!)

So I'm about, but not really reading as regularly as usual.

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From:

lilysea

Over the course of three hours every guy to go to the loo, which would be pretty much every guy in the pub, hit the back of my chair both going and coming back. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that probably reached triple figures. My back was really not happy, and by the end I was about ready to bite someone's head off

Ugh!

ALL THE SOLIDARITY.

I actually find that if my lower back feels "exposed" in the powerchair - eg my powerchair is positioned so that it is easy to bump into me from behind - my lower back muscles tighten up painfully just from the anticipated threat.

I think it's the "body tightens up the muscles to protect an injured area" response. The irony is that the greatest cause of pain in my lower back is tight muscles!

So if I'm going to be somewhere for more than 10 minutes, I always try to position myself defensively.

davidgillon

Yeah, if people start crowding me from behind, especially if I think someone may be about to do that 'companionable hand on shoulder' thing that hurts for hours afterwards, then my body starts bracing in anticipation.