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A Little More Boredom Please

19 July 2010

For the past month or so I’ve had off again, on again pain in my right hip. At times it’s been pretty severe and I wasn’t sure whether I actually had a hip problem or a sciatic nerve problem. I wasn’t too worried about it because it had pretty much gone away when it came back with a vengeance early last week, leaving me almost immobile at one point. So I made an appointment with the doctor for last Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday morning I was out with the IT company I’m turning my clients over to, showing them around one of my client locations. The pain in my hip was bearable so long as I walked slowly and didn’t make any sudden mover. I took them down a dark hallway to where a couple of computers were located, then turned right, through a door and up a short set of steps. At the top of the steps the world fell away.

There was a removable floor panel for access to subfloor wiring that someone left open and I went right through it. The first thing I can remember was an inability breathe which caused me to believe I had cracked ribs. The guys kept asking if I was okay but I couldn’t answer them because I couldn’t take a breath. After a few moments I managed to get a breath and tell them I was feeling better, then I passed out.

Apparently I was only out for maybe 30 seconds and when I came to, I was able to breathe and I wasn’t really in much pain at all. The guys helped me out of the hole and I sat down to gather my wits. At that point I thought I was okay except for sweating profusely because there was no air conditioning on in the room and it was very hot.

I ended up going back to the offices to cool off, where I ended up discovering I had indeed cracked ribs under my right arm. It took me probably half an hour to really recover but it seemed I was not seriously injured and I had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon anyway. What was really interesting was that within an hour of the accident my right hip was feeling much better. I’m about half convinced that the fall caused the sciatic nerve problem to be relieved.

At the doctor’s office I confirmed that the hip problem was indeed a sciatic nerve problem. I also confirmed that I had cracked ribs, which has been a lot of fun to deal with since.

All in all I did not have a particularly good week last week but I think the fall may have been worth it if it really did resolve the sciatic nerve issue.

For the most part I’m not in a lot of pain. Sitting is virtually painless but getting up and down is a slow process to minimize the pain involved. Of course, coughing, sneezing or laughing is a problem because each causes excruciating pain for a minute or two. So I really try to avoid any of those things so far as possible.

Perhaps I’m the victim of the Chinese curse, “may you live in interesting times.”Over all I’m just about ready to stop having things happen to me. While I’ve had some problems with boredom since the vision problems began, I think a little boredom may be just what I need for a while.