What it's like: the snowy driveway edition

[mrissa]

Dear Newspaper Deliverers,

Thank you. Thank the hell out of you. By driving up and down our driveway -- by making multiple tries at it when you failed -- you have created a compacted layer of snow just at the steepest, most difficult part. Chipping away at this for the last hour has availed me very little.

Nolove,
mrissa

I want to amend what I said yesterday. I described the desire for more snow, so that the driveway service would clear our driveway, as laziness. It isn't, and I'm trying to be more careful about saying that sort of thing. I have vertigo. I know, I know, you all know that. I don't think you know what it means right now. I have fallen all but four days out of the last fortnight. One of those falls was this morning, on the driveway.

But anybody can fall on a snowy driveway, right? True. Very true. And in fact I did fall on the snowy driveway without having a vertigo episode, as well as with having one. You want to know the difference?

Without vertigo: foot slips. Attempting rebalancing skid and wobble combo fails; I am clearly falling down the driveway. My scarf slips up (I am still in glasses this morning) and my glasses immediately fog. I fling the shovel out to one side of me so as not to smack myself with it, and I partially catch myself with the shovel, so that when my butt hits the driveway, it is at far less speed. I am slightly shaken but fine.

With vertigo: foot may or may not have slipped at the beginning of this. I don't know. I do know that suddenly my upper body is not clear where up and down are. In the slightest. And I am moving through the air above the cold driveway. Again my scarf slips, so my glasses fog. This time I needed that view, because up? down? I have no idea. Have you ever been underwater and lost track of which way was up? This is like that, except that there are hard, sharp things around, and I will be inexorably pulled towards the big hard thing if I can't figure out the local vertical soon enough. I do not know which way to move to right myself, to catch myself, to hit the ground well. Because I no longer know where anything is. Anything. Except the shovel: I know that the large metal snow shovel is in my hand, and all I can do is keep the shovel as far from my head as I can manage, even when it responds inertially to all the wobbling and waving that is happening in less than ten seconds. I tuck my chin so that the odds are better that I won't hit my head and knock myself out -- I have had a long history of passing out, and this is harder than that, because the conscious brain can do a great deal more to screw it up. I curl my shoulders. I hope that when I find ground, whenever the hell that is, it's not at an angle that makes this my first really, really bad fall.

We know that unless something improves with this vertigo, my first really, really bad fall will happen sometime.

But it was not today; I hit with my shoulder and roll and manage not to let the shovel drop on top of my head. I am lying on the snowy driveway, with the compacted snow and ice stripes where our newspaper delivery person decided to mess with me further. My shoulder hurts. My back is jarred. I did not hit my head. I did not break anything. I did not sprain anything.

I still have 2/3 of the driveway left to shovel at that point. And this is a good day, this is not a vertiginous day, so I will be able to do things today, so I have to do things today, because we don't know if tomorrow will be a good day. Because there will be enough times when the shoulder is wrenched or the back is nauseating or any of a number of other things have gone wrong -- not just on the snowy driveway but in the kitchen, in the shower, on the stairs in my house. All of those normal, normal places. There will be bad days, and this is not one, so I get up and shovel the rest of the damn driveway to the best of my ability, thanks not at all to the newspaper delivery people. I slip again. I don't fall. This is what we call luck, not practice: the yoga balances I could consistently do six months ago, I cannot do today. Practice is not helping.

porphyrin was saying the other day that I need to be sure that the doctors understand that this is serious, because lots of patients with the same stuff as I have are not going to roll with it. They're going to take to their beds every time they have a vertiginous spell. They're going to tell the doctor that they can't do anything because they have vertigo. Who are these people? What are they thinking? Don't they have things to do? I don't understand.

I'm still kind of bitter with the newspaper folks, though. If the choice is ice stripes or slogging through the, oooooh, half-inch of snow to walk up to my door -- or giving up and leaving the paper in the convenient wee green box at the bottom of the driveway, provided for that purpose -- why did they pick the option that would be the longest-term PITA? Monkeys. I tell ya.

Comments

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I wish whole-heartedly that your body would not do this sort of thing to you. That said, however, I am glad you did not hurt yourself badly.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I hate it when other people do thoughtless crap that makes life hard.

Because I'm a man with an engineering background, I am incapable of not offering suggestions. :) We have a tool that looks like a hoe, but with the head on straight instead of bent. It also has a nice rake-or-spade-length handle for good leverage. It makes ice/packed snow removal much simpler. If you don't have something like that, I heatily endorse it. Maybe if you could confound the forces of snowiness faster you would have less opportunities to fall.

I like my mrissa time, but prefer to not get it in hospitals.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I have an old ice chisel from the times before augers created ice-fishing holes. It's a heavy chisel welded to the end of a steel pipe, and it works wonders on even 2" of ice-storm residue.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

I'd be frightened of Mrissa using such a thing for her ice, though. Falling on a heavy chisel welded to the end of a steel pipe seems like it would be ... unpleasant. (But I wouldn't mind having such a thing to help me chip away the ice pile from behind my car this evening ...)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, that iron pipe puts the sharp edge about seven feet away from you. Generally deployed in a sliding motion, wedging in under the ice and lifting, although you can lift and drop it straight down on particularly recalcitrant areas. Considerable momentum.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, except it's still a big heavy iron pipe and can fall, if not controlled, on my arm, or twisting under my arm as I fall on my arm, or etc. I don't think I'll be seeking one out. markgritter might.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

On the nosey.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Not only is it a hoe-like tool that we have chosen to use on ice, it's an ice hoe! (http://osustores.osu.edu/shop/products/Default.asp?strFormAction=showProductDetail&product_no=77&sub_category_no=576&super_category_no=52)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like my mrissa time, but prefer to not get it in hospitals.

This is extremely generous of you considering how much closer your house is to the hospital than to my house.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

That's me, always the nice one.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

People who drive on other folks' unplowed driveways...

Well, there's a special place in Hell for them. The icy Mongolian type of Hell.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I have a strained ligament at the moment. I am walking with a cane in hopes less pressure on the foot will help it heal faster. It would probably heal faster if I stopped walking on it altogether, but I have things to do and places to walk to and entire *countries* to travel between. (Not that I have to walk between countries, just that airports generally demand lots of walking.)

Well. This isn't a big deal, in my case. It's just a little pain, that's all. But it's giving me a bit of insight into just why you're not staying in bed every time you're vertiginous, even though you know perfectly well what could happen and how serious the consequences could be. This really sucks, and I'm sorry it's happening to you. A former small child I know used to say things were "apposed to" happen and then he'd get very upset when his words didn't make it so. Shoveling and showering and walking down stairs are among those things you're apposed to be able to do when you're young and otherwise healthy and it still upsets me when those "apposed to" things don't get to happen that way.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I am not in any way going to suggest that you take to your bed. But short term, until they get this figured out, I am going to suggest you find a strong young man named Lars or Bruno, however they come in Minnesota, to come shovel driveways and sidewalks when it snows. Find a strong young woman if it comes to it. You live in a town full of college students. One of them must need some extra money. Make an arrangement so that each time it snows, this person shows up automatically without needing to be called.

This is a safety issue, not a matter of carrying on and getting things done. I don't want to wake up someday and find that you've fallen and hurt yourself badly. That would upset me a great deal.

You might equal me in sheer stubbornness. :) But I've had 28 years now of learning the lessons of when to keep pushing through and keep going through the pain and fatigue, and when it is wiser to ask for help. I think that with this one thing, because I don't want to see you hurt, it might be time to get someone else to shovel snow. ::hugs::

[eposia.livejournal.com]

I second the suggestion! Just because we CAN handle everything, doesn't mean we should all the time. Not that I would know, from personal experience or stubbornness or anything. *stares off*

[crimini.livejournal.com]

And if you can't find said Minnesotan, maybe a snowblower? Something electric so it's not so crazy noisy. My dad had one and it worked great for him.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So here's the thing: my strong young man is named markgritter. He is here at least 25 out of every 30 days, and this year it's been more like 35 out of 40 or 45 out of 50. So the number of days on which there is not enough snow for the driveway service and markgritter is not home to do it -- and timprov is having a bad day/week/fortnight in terms of his health -- are really, really small in number.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Okay, I believe you. :)

I just fret. I don't want anything bad to happen to you on the days Mark or Tim can't shovel for you. That's all.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I know, and I'm really sorry to worry you.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

*fuss ponder plan*

[papersky.livejournal.com]

So if you have a lot of snow, the service does it, and if you only have a little bit you have to do it yourself?

Then I hope you have lots of snow.

This vertigo thing sucks a lot. Not knowing which way up or down is when you're falling and holding a heavy thing, that could be an interesting thing to put in a book. Still, now you've had the research experience, it would be better if it stopped.

I was going to say I wished I had a magic device that made up keep being the same way, and then I thought maybe you are actually about to invent anti-gravity and a time machine and these vertigo fits are the pre-consequences.

But anyway, I will send you some perfectly-OK-to-be-going-on-with hot chocolate next time I get up that way, in case that helps.

We have snow here, too, but I don't have to shovel it. It's almost unbelievably pretty.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, if we get anything over 2", the service comes. Yay service.

I hope I'm inventing anti-gravity and a time machine. That'd be neat.

You should also expect a box; I will mail it next week. It will be addressed to zorinth, but it would be friendly of him to share.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Suggestion: Cancel your newspaper subscription, and explain why.