Wednesday, March 19, 2008

More things you shouldn’t do post op (Episode X)

Now, of course you may have already got the impression from me that I am a little bit of a stubborn person who likes to just get on with things without asking for help. I of course would not agree – I just do what I do, but there you go.

Anyway, the other day I took it into my head to clean the bedroom top to bottom, moving all (small) moveable objects and not only cleaning under the bed, but moving all the junk under there too so that I could even clean under it instead of around it (novel eh?). At some stage in all of this I realised that whatever I did with the Hoover I couldn’t get to the bit in the middle under the bed from either side and so I got the hose out, with the cat hair removing tool and got down on my stomach and wriggled under the bed.
Something I should mention at this point is that I have always slept on my stomach – my whole life – until the surgery. Since the surgery I cannot sleep or lie on my stomach, it’s not comfortable and if I do it for too long I lock up and can’t move. If my physio wants me to do this she props my stomach and head to make it easier to get me back up but I never thought of this when I started wriggling under the bed.

So, there I am with my little feet sticking out the side of the bed - on my stomach with the Hoover hose in my hand. I find I can’t figure out how to get back out again as my left leg is refusing to take instructions and my spine is stiffening into a rod of iron (or should that be steel?) which is being bent the wrong way. It is at this point that the Hoover finds an errant shoelace within inches of its current position, sucks it up and that wraps itself around some kind of internal doings and the motor starts to strain under the load. To make matters worse, smoke starts to pour out from the region of the motor and even flailing my arm around I can only just get fingertips to the Hoover body but not the on/off switch! The cat (who has been hiding under the bed because of the Hoover noise) comes up to me to investigate the gnashing of teeth and licks my nose….(yup, that was helpful I’m sure)

Anyway, somehow I wriggle out in a type of rolling fashion (Lara Croft would’ve been proud of me!) heaving myself forward by grabbing the chest of drawers and hit the Hoover button. Smoke stops and I heave a big sigh of relief…

…and that was it for me for the day!

Big question is, what will I do next time this job needs doing? Do you think I will ask hubby?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey--I can relate!!! I was fixing my coffee table & lied down on my back & slide uner it with my screw driver...well I fixed the table but had a bit of difficulty sliding back from under & finally being able to get myself off the ground...Ha!
I still have not been able to sleep on my stomach either & would love to as I always did prior to the whole thing..if I try it , I have quite a time flipping back to my backside..........Lynne