the dark side of immobility

Over the weekend, I had the unfortunate liberty to injure myself............... again.... yes. Again, for the God knows how many time. Only this time I didn't injure myself from squash. I injured myself whilst exercising in the gym. Also, it's not the knee this time. It's my back this time.

Due to the injury, I have been confined to my bed most of the time for the last few days. Hence, I have the free time to write this blog post. Given how long I have been inactive on my blog I guess, it's high time I wrote something meaningful (writing about injuring myself may not exactly be a useful read but you may never know). 

So.... under the constraints of my injury, the limited physical spaces of my bed and this horrendously hot weather, I am like a bird clipped of its wings and unable to fly. Apart for feeling horribly frustrated about my current situation, it can be a very appreciative moment to reflect on how lucky all of us are when we can move around and do whatever we want with our legs and hands. 

Now, I think I have a better grasp of how those bedridden people feel like - literally confined to the bed for the rest of their lives. You'd be surprised but not being able to move around on the bed itself is frustrating enough! I am not even talking about running around doing stuff. I used to think lazing on the bed not doing anything would be nice. I now know how wrong that assumption is. I am extremely surprised as to how difficult it is to not doing anything and just lay still on the bed. It really is a pain (in my current context, the pain is both figuratively and literally!). 

Let me try and give you an impression of what it's like to be in my current position. I wake up in the morning, I try to get out of bed, I have to slowly turn myself to be on all fours before I slowly raise my torso upwards. In the process of raising my torso, I'd still feel a sharp pain in my lower back, albeit not as sharp as compared to raising myself in a seated position. When I finally succeed in standing up, I then limp my way to brush my teeth. Believe you me, 10 feet feels like 10 miles with the pain in my back.

Then I limp to the kitchen, make a hot chocolate and some biscuits, then I limp back to the bed and lie down. I then let the pain subside before grabbing a book to read to kill time. From there, I get up only to answer the call of nature.

Third day of immobility and I can now safely say what a real pain in the back it is to be immobile and knowing there is so little you can do in such a state. It's a taste of the dark side of immobility.