Wednesday 4 January 2017

Waiting Out The Pain

You know how they say that you feel the muscle pain from a fall more on the second or third day, rather than right away.  I can attest to the veracity of that statement. Today I hurt even more than I did yesterday; on Monday I felt almost no muscle pain at all. What makes it worse today is this is the first attempt at my Range of Motion exercises since the fall. Trust me, the range hurts.

I do my own arm exercises still. It was easy to notice that my left arm hurt more than it usually does. My left arm, my left side in general, is failing faster than my right. The muscles in my left arm definitely got a pull as I fell forward of the commode chair. They most likely, along with my right arm, were out in front of my trying to slow the fall, or frantically grabbing at thin air looking for a safety bar. Alas, none were to be found.

My left knee seems to have taken a real beating too. The pain as we bent that knee today was enough to make me cry out loud. There would be more of this; my knee was just the first part. There are a couple of exercises which really stretch the knee. When we did the first one my cry of pain actually frightened the HCA enough that she stopped right there. We adjusted, eased the exercise, and moved on.

While there was consistent pain in my knee on the left, the real surprise was my right foot. When we went to do the foot stretches, usually one of my favourite exercises, the pain in my right foot was enough that I called them off. We did a minimal stretch on my right foot. Oddly enough, my left foot, the one with the cuts, had almost no muscle pain. It's as if the fall did enough in cutting my foot.

Then there are the back muscles. My back muscles on my right hand side are the ones which took a real beating in the fall. If you can imaging a slow crumple forward from a chair, with a slow tilt towards the left hand side, the side where my foot was stuck on the foot pad, you can imagine how the back muscles would stretch and pull as I fell. They don't hurt a lot, just enough to remind me that they were involved too.

All in all, it's kind of odd to think that my worst pain is in my right foot. It almost makes me wonder if I didn't break something in it again. I'm in no hurry to find out. I know what the doctors will do; nothing. There is almost nothing you can do with the small bones in the foot, and since my feet don't move, I really don't need a cast. I'm just going to have to live with the pain and wait it out. I'm good at that. I do a lot of that these days.

2 comments:

  1. Hi, Richard.

    about your first aid kit. If funds are tight, I remember with my brother and ALS Society of BC we were able to get heaps of gauze, tape, etc etc for free. Not sure if it came through the social worker/Community Supports or ALS society...pretty sure it was the BC AlS Clinic......might be good to look into.

    Great that you are getting your passport renewed!

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  2. Funds are not that tight right now. Plus I have tons of supplies from the hospital today. I will also ask the Home Care Nurse tomorrow if I need anything more. The nurse today said gauze pads, gauze bandage, tape and some bandaids are all I really need.

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