Published Dec 21, 2006
Those of you who have been following along for quite a while may remember The Incident With The Roll-Out Bed. For many years, when visiting my Grandma1 for christmas, I slept on this fold-up bed on wheels that got rolled out only when I was in town. When I was six, this contraption, whose purchase only slightly antedated my father’s birth, was quite adequate. However, when I turned 14 or so, one night on this bed left me writhing on the floor in the way that only a sore back can make one writhe.
Switching to a hotel bed has been a moderate improvement, although somebody needs to have a discussion with someone in purchasing about buying feather pillows whose feathers don’t magically flow to the part where your head isn’t, leaving said head raised off the bed only by the thickness of the pillowcase. But I digress.
Earlier this year, I managed to tweak my back by sitting on my very-not-supportive couch and doing work for days on end. A small tweak was magnified into exquisite pain by economy-class airline accomodations, and I spent four days trying various yoga poses to loosen up my back.2
Being an individual whose habits are tempered by practicality, I switched to working more in my office and on my Poang chair3. While good for my back, neither of these was sufficient to overcome my old Diablo injury.
If we take the wayback machine to 1998, we might come upon a me, with a different hairstyle, more rugby shirts, and an addiction to the game of Diablo. Like many young geeks, I quested in the catacombs for hours and hours. I even fought through the pain as I was rent asunder by skeletons and developed a twinge under my left shoulderblade.
Sadly, while the skeletons were ultimately vanquished, nothing could take away the twinge. Too much typing and, suddenly, it would appear. Proper posture seemed to have little to do with its arrival. And on Tuesday it came back. I took some Advil and it got a little better, but even some muscle relaxers cadged from a migraine-inflicte friend were insufficient to send it away.
And now, thanks to a three-hour flight in a slim metal tube hurtling through the atmosphere at a speed insufficient to stop the guy behind me from kicking my seat every time he moved, my shoulder pain has spread to the middle third of the left side of my back. Ouchie, it hurts. But, since we’re in Houston, I should expect no less! I’ll see you next year when, perhaps, I’ll slip a disc.
1 Not my granma
2 Finally, with a great cracking, something worked.
3 Photo is for illustrative purposes only, and does not depict my Poang.
This entry lead me to your other entries in Various Frailties. Do you put your physical maladies out there to get women? Cause most women I know find frail men super H-O-T! ; )
Re: your bad bed. When at all possible, stay at a Westin. If you?ve never slept in a Heavenly Bed before, you?ve never really slept.
Re: your bad back. Maybe your migraine-afflicted friend will give you some stronger drugs out of their stash of schedule III narcotics.