I had just gotten into the bathroom and was ready to let it rip and then - BOOOM!!
I had heard my mother moving around to get out of bed before, so I thought she must have fallen off the bed. After hearing her moaning, I decided I should postpone the call of nature.
She had fallen while walking, probably tripped on one of the many boxes piled around in our house.
After she regained her composure she didn't ask for anything right away. She has had back surgery to add titanium rods and only she really knows how she can move without causing even more pain. She manuevered around and got up herself. This happens occasionally, and while my brother usually tries to offer help, I've always taken the stance that if she needs something she will ask for it. I don't think I can really help her otherwise. She doesn't seem to like to ask for help, and she doesn't want to become dependent on anyone.
With me watching her, it seemed like it wasn't a bad injury and that she was dealing with it not much worse than a person with a badly stubbed toe. However she's repeatedly told us that she experiences a lot more pain than most people, which she has had to deal with since the surgery. She describes it like a nightmare, where the pain is unbearable but you think the pain will go a away in a week or a month. A month goes by and the pain is still overwhelming. It becomes 2 months, 6 months, and it never ends. At the time I didn't understand much, but I still remember when after 5 years she realized that the pain was finally manageable, she seemed to be healing, and there was a nice feeling.
Knowing this, I decided to forget what I thought I knew about how she experienced the fall. I didn't much expect from the outset to be able to help her any, and that is the pattern on all such occasions. So I just watched and remembered how I usually experience such falls.
Immediately I realized our experiences are very much different. I've always been resistant to bangs. Usually when I stub myself on something it will make a big noise and someone will ask me if I'm alright. Usually I hardly feel a thing, and rarely have a bruise unless I'm being particularly reckless. I've had a number of big bruises and I've had several mildly bad falls, but I'm 20 years old.
While I rarely get a slight bruise and more rarely, a stiff hurting joint, she seems to get a huge bruise, pain all over, and swelling. She asked for vitamin C and water, and limped back to the bed. She is coping, but I can tell the pain and shock is consuming half of her mental power.
She is doing her best to block out the pain. She gets a bag of green beans out of the freezer and asks me for a spoon. It confused me and I thought she intended to use it to ice the bruise, but she pauses, puts it back, and limps across the house to her computer desk to sit down. Then she curses herself for forgetting to get ice to put on it, so I go get the beans back. She had gotten the beans intending to eat them, but wasn't able to realize that she wanted to use them for her knee. After this she said it was having spasms, apparently another normal experience for her in this situation.
I was thinking there is so much difference between my experience and hers, easily describable, that others here might be able to point out underlying problems based on her symptoms.
Along with me and my brother she has been ketogenic for a year or more, although she is the least strict of all of us. When she goes into town she often brings back a large soda, potato chips and more recently, sandwitches from Subway. She's remarked on how great she has been since making the diet change. I noticed after all this time her muscle form seems to have completely changed; she has gotten leaner and more shapely, and her form seems younger and fit. She said the last time we moved house, she was laid up in bed for weeks. This time she was strong and had a lot of endurance (the boxes are everywhere because we just moved). I am always hopeful that the diet change will help her recover from problems with her soy allergy, and the occasional fall like this one. She is determined to have her "comfort" foods as well as ketosis, and excludes these foods whenever she feels she needs to heal. She likes this lifestyle and isn't open to suggestions, except maybe occasional supplements.
She says ever since the surgery she has been more coping than anything. She has never gotten back to her former speed - she reminisces about how she would simply get things done and go from one thing to the next in a marvellous flow. I think she is struggling to bring her experiences to a level where she can understand them. She is sometimes unattentive and forgetful (though many ordinary people are).
I diligently follow more than 30 webcomics every day, something I like to joke about to my friends, and I've seen many webcomic authors work on their comics through various medical emergencies. It has always struck me that the art style is always disturbed. I can look at a character and I can see all the curves seem wrong. In many cases the tone of the art also shifts, sometimes becoming strangely feminine and/or expressions becoming duller or sedated. Artists are so tuned into their drawing, so I think surgery and medical drugs must have a tremendous effect on one's perceptions, especially in certain cases like my mother.
So, how does this look to the network? What can you suggest?
I had heard my mother moving around to get out of bed before, so I thought she must have fallen off the bed. After hearing her moaning, I decided I should postpone the call of nature.
She had fallen while walking, probably tripped on one of the many boxes piled around in our house.
After she regained her composure she didn't ask for anything right away. She has had back surgery to add titanium rods and only she really knows how she can move without causing even more pain. She manuevered around and got up herself. This happens occasionally, and while my brother usually tries to offer help, I've always taken the stance that if she needs something she will ask for it. I don't think I can really help her otherwise. She doesn't seem to like to ask for help, and she doesn't want to become dependent on anyone.
With me watching her, it seemed like it wasn't a bad injury and that she was dealing with it not much worse than a person with a badly stubbed toe. However she's repeatedly told us that she experiences a lot more pain than most people, which she has had to deal with since the surgery. She describes it like a nightmare, where the pain is unbearable but you think the pain will go a away in a week or a month. A month goes by and the pain is still overwhelming. It becomes 2 months, 6 months, and it never ends. At the time I didn't understand much, but I still remember when after 5 years she realized that the pain was finally manageable, she seemed to be healing, and there was a nice feeling.
Knowing this, I decided to forget what I thought I knew about how she experienced the fall. I didn't much expect from the outset to be able to help her any, and that is the pattern on all such occasions. So I just watched and remembered how I usually experience such falls.
Immediately I realized our experiences are very much different. I've always been resistant to bangs. Usually when I stub myself on something it will make a big noise and someone will ask me if I'm alright. Usually I hardly feel a thing, and rarely have a bruise unless I'm being particularly reckless. I've had a number of big bruises and I've had several mildly bad falls, but I'm 20 years old.
While I rarely get a slight bruise and more rarely, a stiff hurting joint, she seems to get a huge bruise, pain all over, and swelling. She asked for vitamin C and water, and limped back to the bed. She is coping, but I can tell the pain and shock is consuming half of her mental power.
She is doing her best to block out the pain. She gets a bag of green beans out of the freezer and asks me for a spoon. It confused me and I thought she intended to use it to ice the bruise, but she pauses, puts it back, and limps across the house to her computer desk to sit down. Then she curses herself for forgetting to get ice to put on it, so I go get the beans back. She had gotten the beans intending to eat them, but wasn't able to realize that she wanted to use them for her knee. After this she said it was having spasms, apparently another normal experience for her in this situation.
I was thinking there is so much difference between my experience and hers, easily describable, that others here might be able to point out underlying problems based on her symptoms.
Along with me and my brother she has been ketogenic for a year or more, although she is the least strict of all of us. When she goes into town she often brings back a large soda, potato chips and more recently, sandwitches from Subway. She's remarked on how great she has been since making the diet change. I noticed after all this time her muscle form seems to have completely changed; she has gotten leaner and more shapely, and her form seems younger and fit. She said the last time we moved house, she was laid up in bed for weeks. This time she was strong and had a lot of endurance (the boxes are everywhere because we just moved). I am always hopeful that the diet change will help her recover from problems with her soy allergy, and the occasional fall like this one. She is determined to have her "comfort" foods as well as ketosis, and excludes these foods whenever she feels she needs to heal. She likes this lifestyle and isn't open to suggestions, except maybe occasional supplements.
She says ever since the surgery she has been more coping than anything. She has never gotten back to her former speed - she reminisces about how she would simply get things done and go from one thing to the next in a marvellous flow. I think she is struggling to bring her experiences to a level where she can understand them. She is sometimes unattentive and forgetful (though many ordinary people are).
I diligently follow more than 30 webcomics every day, something I like to joke about to my friends, and I've seen many webcomic authors work on their comics through various medical emergencies. It has always struck me that the art style is always disturbed. I can look at a character and I can see all the curves seem wrong. In many cases the tone of the art also shifts, sometimes becoming strangely feminine and/or expressions becoming duller or sedated. Artists are so tuned into their drawing, so I think surgery and medical drugs must have a tremendous effect on one's perceptions, especially in certain cases like my mother.
So, how does this look to the network? What can you suggest?
