Waking up this morning was not the best of all possible experiences. My hips and my back hurt quite a bit, and I was more than a little peeved with the black ball of fluff who started insisting it was time for breakfast sometime around 3:45. I finally appeased the felines around 6:30, and discovered that walking was requiring both effort and thought, and that even when given plenty of both, the process was still both slow and unpleasant.
After I got home from dropping G off at the bus, I went through my usual morning pre-computer routine.1 This time, I also grabbed a couple of ice packs.2
Thus supplied for the morning, I hobbled downstairs, and went to set up my laptop.3 It was at this point that I realized that the power cord for said laptop was still upstairs, in my carryon.
Crap.
I trudged back upstairs, grab the water bottle I forgot to bring with me the first time through, dig the power cord out of my carryon, and head back downstairs.
By this point, my hips hurt badly enough that even the mild movement required to get my laptop set back up was causing me to whimper a bit. Also, my normal “running really freaking warm” engine was in overdrive (as it usually gets when I’m particularly creaky or achy). Really, this was not an ideal start to the day.
But, I finally get the laptop back up and running, and I have my coffee, and I’ve taken off my hoodie (because 56° is just too damned hot) and I gently settle down in my seat.
Time to deploy the ice packs! I put one under each hip, in the hopes that they will help with the pain. I figure the application of cold can’t do much damage, and if the packs don’t seem to be helping, I’ll remove them. No big deal.
Fast forward 3 hours.
I am freezing. I retrieve my hoodie from where I had unceremoniously flung it on the couch earlier and put it back on. I turn on the fireplace.4 I drink more coffee.5 I’m actually getting reasonably comfortable… except for my butt. My butt continues to be uncomfortably cold.6
As I work to stand up so that I can retrieve the heating pad from the other side of the couch, I put a hand down to push off of the couch cushion and…touch an ice pack.
Oh, right. That would do it.7
Now that I’m no longer sitting on two blocks of ice, my butt is warming up at a fairly decent clip, and thus, so am I. On a positive note, the ice packs were really helping, as I hadn’t actually noticed any hip pain in a couple of hours. On a less positive note, I am now acutely aware that the pain in my hips is slowly returning, now that they’re not snuggled up against some mini glaciers.
And joining Mr. Hyneman in my head is Major Sydney Freedman. “Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: pull down your pants, and slide on the ice.”
If it’s all the same to you, Sydney, I think I’ll pass.
Footnotes
- Make cup of coffee, refill water bottle, put piece of fruit in pocket, put protein bar in pocket.
- We have all the ice packs. One of my medications needs to be refrigerated, and it is shipped to me monthly. If you have need of ice packs or rectangular styrofoam coolers, we should talk.
- Which had only made it to my space downstairs because it was in G’s carryon, which he unpacked.
- Insert cats cheering here.
- Gods bless the Thermos.
- This may not be a big deal to some people, but my butt comprises a significant percentage of my body mass! (Oh, do shut up.) So, when my butt’s cold, I’m cold.
- As realization dawned, I heard Jamie Hyneman saying, “Well, there’s your problem.” He was really smug about it, too. Bastard. Though, I guess I can’t say that I blame him.
I’m liking this because you told it in a very amusing way. I can recognize these problems and deeply sympathize (all the more because my sacrum and ilium had parted company last week and my massage therapist put them back together and then used her elbow to tell the rest of my muscles to let go because balance had been restored—owwww)… When I’m in pain I get cold and very cranky. Interesting how pain caused different symptoms. And I’m never getting a two-story house ever again.