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Blog > Thoughts > Other's Thoughts > Chloe's Thoughts > Three Day Diary

Three Day Diary

Written by Chloe on Saturday, December 12, 2009

Just things I did last week; peeing, pondering, parking; the usual stuff:

Thursday

There is a first time for everything. I accidentally peed myself and it went all the way through to my skirt, even though I was wearing an incontinence pad. Yay me! Yes, well, there’s not many audiences besides you lot who would understand my pride and pleasure at this.

On the way out from work I stopped by the office of my paraplegic friend for a chat. I opened the conversation by asking when he expected his new wheelchair to arrive. The wheelchair conversation lasted well over an hour. He was happy to show me all about it on the internet and explain the problems he’s having with his current chair.

We talked about many things; family, job, the heavy doors at the entrance. He’s been hinting that I should say something about the doors. He seems to think I have more clout than he does. I do have friends in high places. I’ll see what I can do.

Eventually I brought up my peeing accident of the day, explaining that I used to self-cath for a while, and what my system is now. In turn, he was comfortable about giving me his history of bladder management; his experience of the pros and cons of various techniques. By the time our little chat had turned into a two hour conversation, we both figured it was time to go home.

Friday

Hiking is cold in December; but I can’t afford to ski currently. The canyon is narrow enough in places that the only way through was to walk on the frozen layer of ice above the rushing creek; solid enough, but very slippery. When I reached the partially frozen waterfall I decided that attempting to climb up it would be a bad idea, so I turned back.

It’s hard not to think about paraplegia. After all, people slip on ice and break their backs. But I would freeze to death long before anybody found me up there. I thought I was being very careful as I traversed an ice covered ledge about twelve feet above the level of the creek to my left. Things happen very fast when you slip on ice…

Without any conscious thought, I had grabbed a tree branch with my left hand and found myself dangling above the creek. I thought this stuff only happened in cartoons! My left arm did not feel good; not good at all. I looked down and thought about letting go. Hmm, another bad idea. I had fallen about three or four feet, so there was still a bit of a drop down to the creek. The frozen layer over the water would almost certainly break through with my momentum. The water was only two or three feet deep, but going fast enough that I could get sucked underneath the ice layer…

I knew my left arm was in trouble. It probably helped my grip that part of the branch had ripped through my glove, and a little way into the flesh of my palm. I grabbed the branch with my right hand and worked my way back onto the ledge. I had done just about the worst thing I could possibly do to trigger fibromyalgia.

I can’t resist the temptation to find symbolic meaning from hiking. What just happened here? Traveling my slippery path, I was confronted with two alternatives. One was death. Okay, I am exaggerating with literary license here. Falling through the ice into the creek could possibly have been fatal, but it certainly was not a certainty. Instead, the tree chose to catch me by the hand and help me back onto the path. The journey continues, but with the reminder that the price of life is pain.

It didn’t help matters that I slipped and fell on the ice one more time on the way down. After getting home, the pain was too much to sit up, so I lay on the couch with strategically placed cushions. Alicia brought me dinner and put in a DVD before going off to read.

I wanted to watch "A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America". I hadn’t seen it in over a year, and a couple of things had reminded me about it. Firstly I have a friend who lives in India, close to an area with a smouldering civil war. Polio is still endemic there, and he was recently telling me about the tactic of war involving the deliberate disruption of supplies of polio vaccine. I’ve never been vaccinated, so of course I had been pondering visiting my friend. Maybe it’s not to late to catch polio?

Secondly, the buggering of my left arm reminded me of my polio survivor friend. Earlier this year she had badly broken her left arm and was therefore describing herself as triplegic. Yes, it’s a real word. I’d spent many hours on the telephone with her, giving reassurance that things would be okay; listening to her problems with getting out of bed, getting dressed, going to the toilet; giving her space to vent her frustrations; being there when she wanted to cry, when she wanted to…

I pondered triplegia as I watched the documentary, and picked up on things that had escaped me before. It is good to have additional psychological context for the weekly telephone conversations with my friend.

Alicia helped me get undressed ready for bed. The pain interrupted my sleep a lot.

Saturday

The prospect of getting out of bed was scary. It took an hour to muster up the courage. I was expecting the fibromyalgia pain to have got worse.

I stopped transferring to my wheelchair every morning, after the rotator cuff tear in July. The only exception I’ve made is when my boyfriend has been staying the night; better to bear the pain than to be found out that I can walk. So, no wheelchair transfer to deal with. Still, I pondered how on earth I would get out of bed with a buggered arm after I am paraplegic.

The pain was less than I thought it was going to be. Fortunately I had started treating the problem within a minute of hanging on that tree branch.

The store at a shopping mall was having a one day sale on what I wanted to get Alicia for Christmas. It was snowing. Cars were all over the place on the freeway; minor accidents here and there. I pondered how I might get in a car accident on the slippery road and… yes, you guessed it, become paraplegic. No, I’m not going to deliberately crash the car; but how can one avoid thinking about such things? It’s like being asked not to think about an elephant. Except in this case the elephant is sitting there right next to you all the time, no matter what you do, no matter where you are.

There were twenty disability parking spaces at the mall, all of them occupied. I made an interesting observation as I started at one end and drove slowly by: NONE of the cars was displaying a parking permit. No, I am NOT kidding; not one of them. As I approached space number nineteen, that car pulled out so I took the spot. This rule was new to me. If it’s Christmas shopping time, and if it’s snowing, then disability parking spaces do not apply. Everything is up for grabs. The amusing irony did not escape me. Some people might accuse me of not needing a parking permit. Yeah right, like I’m the problem! I was the ONLY one out of twenty cars to have a permit. In any case, I was very glad of it. As my GP had pointed out to me "You don’t want to be wheeling any distance during a fibomyalgia episode". No kidding; it hurts like hell! It wasn’t so bad once I was inside the mall, out of the snow, on the flat smooth surface.

Inside the mall, I wondered why some people get the idea that BIID is about getting attention. It’s quite rare that anybody gives me a second glance. I would get far more attention if I wore a clown hat instead of using a wheelchair.

I stopped at the liquor store after I’d braved the freeway again. A guy held the door open for me on the way out, but in such a manner that my egress was blocked; and I had to come to a halt. I’m getting in the habit of being in good humor about such things. I looked up, smiling at him, and said "I’ll run over your toes". Then I started laughing.

Tags: Disability, Fibromyalgia, Incontinence, Pain, Paraplegia, Parking, Peeing, Polio, Triplegia, Wheelchair

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