Trapped in the Body of a Ninety Year Old

I haven’t posted much since last week, and for a very good reason.

My body has declared war on me.

Now, before I launch into a several paragraphs-long whine-fest, I’d just like to state that I’m a pretty lucky girl. I’m not hungry. I’m not homeless. I have people who love me and I’m gainfully employed. I could go on and on and on. But one fact right now is trumping all of this.

I am in constant pain.

Today, it’s a double-whammy of my sinuses and my back-neck-shoulders, and it’s the second half of this power couple to which I’m doing the greatest disservice right now by typing. Call it dedication–like the Marquis de Sade writing with his own excrement because his writing tools had been taken away, I just keep right on writing because it’s just too weird not to (okay, maybe not just like the Marquis. He wrote with excrement. What I write usually is excrement. It’s a tenuous connection at best). And I know that with every word I type, I’m probably doing more damage to my fingers, my wrist, my neck, and my back.

Then to add insult to injury (literally), I did even more damage to my back yesterday by putting together a laptop table that was supposed to help me make my workspace at home more ergonomic–I flipped the table over and pulled a lower back muscle. Irony abounds.

So I try to engage in activities that don’t involve stressing out any of my back-neck-shoulder muscles on the right side. I watch TV, my hand and wrist swaddled in a brace to keep my wrist firm. I clean the house, gingerly, using my left hand to dust and wipe and swiffer (if “swiffer” isn’t a verb, then it should be. “Swiff,” maybe?). I eat snacks, thinking about how I’d rather be working out but I can’t because every time I do, I end up hurting myself. I think about the novel I’m not sending out query letters for, because I can’t spend long hours in front of the computer anymore when I’m not at work. I think about the essays I’m not writing and posting on this blog for the one or two people who actually read them. I think about the second novel I’m not working on because typing just hurts too much. I think about the yardwork and landscaping I’m not doing because it hurts too much to bend over. I think about all the activities I’m not doing because I’ll end up paying for them–literally paying, with a trip to the chiropractor–tomorrow.

I think about how I might cheat on my chiropractor with a physical therapist, but I don’t want to add another co-payment to my list of monthly bills (and I really should go see an allergist as well for my sinus problem, as I’ve apparently moved to the allergy capital of the world and I’ve been told by those in the know that the symptoms are just going to get worse).

And I think, again, how lucky I am in so many aspects of my life. And I think about how long my life is going to be if I’m not even forty years old but I’m moving around as if I’m ninety.

And I think that even though I’m one of the luckiest girls in the world, I’m sad, and I understand how people in constant pain are also in a constant state of depression. I have good and bad days, and today is just really, really bad.

So if anyone out there is in the same situation, I hear you. And if you have any suggestions or links for exercises or anything that helps alleviate carpal tunnel or back pain, feel free to share.

Whine over.