Last November, I set out to do two things: write 30 blog posts in 30 days, and complete an online course about the anatomy of the upper limbs. I didn’t really expect to be able to do both in a month. Mostly I was just looking for the motivation to practice using voice recognition and develop some kind of “work” routine. I was aiming for two hours each day, divided into manageable chunks. Blogging was the top priority (and more appealing), so I would spend most of my days drafting posts and playing catch up for days I’d missed. The online course fell by the wayside. As I neglected the lectures and quizzes about the pathologies of the arms and hands, I developed just that; a new pathology in my arms and hands.
Posture looks simple, when you see those pictures of crash-test-dummies sitting at their computers, diligently keeping their backs straight and tummies firm. Ideally, everything is supposed to be at right angles, but it’s really hard to achieve that when you are trying to prop up sagging shoulders and the weak neck with a big heavy head on it. It’s especially hard to achieve that when you are making-do with a couch and some bits of rubber foam because the government is too cheap to provide specialist seating.
These past couple of years, I’ve been so focused on trying to support my head and shoulders while I work, I haven’t really thought about the position of my arms and hands. I’ve been getting better at using voice recognition software, but using Dragon without a mouse is pretty difficult. Actually, it’s frustrating to the point of paralysis. So while I was blogging, I would use a wireless mouse, balancing it on my knee or the couch.
So here I am, blogging away, editing and over-editing, tap tap tapping with my fingers and my hands and my wrists and my arms in all the wrong positions. It only took a few weeks to develop a secondary injury. It started as a niggle and a tingle, but it quickly reached the point where mousing for 15 minutes would leave my wrists, hands and sometimes even my armpits in pain all day. I had to concede that 30 posts in 30 days wasn’t going to happen.
It’s a terrible cliche, but so often it feels like I take a step forward, then two steps backwards. I was actually making progress with “working”, and suddenly there’s this whole new problem to deal with. Not only does it hurt to use a mouse, but now it’s also hard to chop vegetables, use scissors and floss my teeth. Luckily, with the help of my OT, a hand therapist, and some anti-inflammatories, much of the pain has subsided. It still flares up frequently, and I need to be really careful about how much I use my hands, but it’s mostly manageable. I’m learning how to use my voice to replace mouse commands, and I have an adorable new mouse shaped like a penguin with a bowtie.
People often ask me whether my condition has advanced, or whether I’m getting worse. In lots of ways I am worse, because muscles my lower back, my arms and wrists, my head and neck have become strained and inflamed as I try and compensate for the weaknesses in my shoulders. Having said that, I am also better. I’m better at understanding where the pain comes from, and how it manifests in my brain. I’m better at managing it with drugs, pacing, and exercises. I’m better at adapting to the physical environment and using the equipment I do have. As much as it might have been useful to know more about the physiology of my upper body, learning all of this life stuff is really more important. So I’m not so sad I didn’t finish that course. And I reckon 13 blog post ain’t bad.
This thing's got legs 