I think I will start with the murder in mind just to get it off my chest! My car has a dent in the rear wing. It is around the size and shape a city tank (Shogun type thing) would make if someone were to reverse out of a space and crush my rear wing with their bumper. I am hopping mad and the b*stards didn’t even leave a note to say sorry. It’s not the end of the world as it should push out ok, but it means stripping all the lining out the boot and removing some bits a pieces and why? All ‘cos some a**e can’t drive properly. There! I’ve said it…I shall now move on with dignity.
My little car had to go in to the garage last week as the key will no longer unlock the driver’s door. It’s been sticky for a while and has now finally given up the ghost. The only thing is, that the lock itself works fine, its just the key barrel that is broken. So, since the door unlocks and locks ok from the inside, then that is what has to be done- the only problem is, that it’s a bit of a palaver for me!
Imagine the scene – you unlock the car from the passenger side*1 and climb in. Now the fun starts. Do you:
- A) Try to climb over to the driver’s side? With the kind of motor control I have in my legs? Unlikely!
- B) Sit in the passenger side and lean across to unlock the driver’s door from the inside? Ummm, slight problem here, I don’t lean too well owing to the fact I have a ‘rod up my a*se’ (as the expression goes amongst my friends)
- C) Climb into the car, kneel on the passenger seat, lean forward and unlock the door from the inside? Yes, correct!
OK, so with the door unlocked, I then have to climb out of the car, walk around the outside and climb in the driver’s side to get going. This has been going on for a few weeks now as my car is 25 years old and the lock is a special order…I suspect it is coming from Japan – by slow boat…..or is that China? Anyway, it’s coming very slowly, wherever it is coming from so I am having to manage.
Now, locking the door is no problem as I can lock the door when it is open and just slam it shut, which is exactly what I did the other night when I came home. The only thing odd about the other night is that I did have to park on the opposite side of the road to our house. But I didn’t really think anything about that, until the following morning when I went out to the car. You see, opposite our house is the gate to the park and right outside the gate are some railings designed to stop small children from hurtling out of the gate all excited after playing in the park and running headfirst into the nearest passing truck. So, I had parked right by the railings…very close to the railings….close enough that you could barely pass a hand between the door mirror and the railings…the passenger door mirror that is. That would be the same passenger door that I have to unlock, climb inside blah blah blah, to unlock the driver’s door….are you getting a mental image of this?? I only have 2 doors in my car too…and the boot of course. So, minor problem here, how do you get in to the car, through the passenger door, in order to open the driver’s door so that you can go out for the day?
In the end it was hubby to the rescue, as I was all for opening the boot (trunk), climbing inside by dropping the back of the rear seat and getting into the car that way. I was even wondering if I could use a strong magnet to operate the electric sunroof switch through the window, but hubby decided to demonstrate that a man of a certain age, provided he is still lithe and limber can in fact, climb through a gap smaller than any individual part of him. It was impressive !!
*1 Which thankfully has a keyhole on the passenger side, unlike hubby’s last car.
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?
I was reading the forum the other day and I noticed something about bending and how we should all bend from the knees when we pick stuff up. Well, I just can’t do this – never have been able to and probably never will be able to – I simply don’t have the motor control function to be able to push up from the floor once my legs are bent. This obviously has nothing to do with the scoliosis, but everything to do with my spina bifida.
So, picture the scene – my surgeon fuses my spine down to L5 and leaves L5/S1 joint free – he tells me that it will be good for me to have at least one moveable joint but I am told not to overstress it in any way shape or form because it is already arthritic and worn. Making matters worse is that due to my rotation and stuff, he had to put a wedge of metal in between L4 and L5 (1.5” high on one side) which means that the rigidity of this places extra stress on that ole L5/S1 joint. Hmmm, no stress eh? What shall I do? Be good? Me? I think not!
I started after surgery with all good intentions and because of it had loads of problems putting on my socks and shoes but now all that has changed. It’s true I can put my left sock and shoe on by bending my foot into my lap but my right one just won’t bend in that direction (more effects of spina bifida I’m afraid making my right hip largely inflexible*1) – so, what do I do - do I ask hubby or someone to put my sock and shoe on? *2 No, mostly I just bend at the waist until I can get to my foot. I stretch and stretch and I reach – now does this count as stressing my joint?
I dunno, but I do know that I’ve stretched it all so much that I can now touch my toes – I don’t really think I should be doing that now, do you?
*1 Something along the lines of it only bending in one useful direction .... I used to however dislocate it easily enough if I tried to push it any other way (though as I'm sure you'll understand when I say I haven't tried for a while). In fact, as a teenager (and possibly when a trifle drunk so my memory is a little hazy) I think I offered to do this in an attempt to amuse people.....!
*2 In fact I do ask this if I am having a bad morning - sometimes pride will only make up for so much pain and effort.
I admit it - I am a very bad blog mama who has not done any recent updates. It's true, I haven't and why? Well, life has just been a bit busy and I forgot, Okay? Yep, I admit it, I forgot......
So, I have made another new Year's Resolution (did you ever wonder that every day is the start of a new year?) - I will not leave you hanging on for weeks at a time - what do you mean, you don't hang on my every word...oh gosh, darn ...(etc etc)
Anyway, I will try and post something a little more meaningful in the wondering line over the next few days...and if I can't do that, I'll see if I can come up with something warped!
Actually, it was kind of odd today, since I subscribe to my own RSS feed (yeah I know that's vain) and it told me that I had two new posts - uh? How come? It was wrong though - it was just two old posts and I suppose RSS is now clever enough to know that I only skimmed them, and didn't read them at all........
