Week of 17 July 2023

The pain did not abate

I mean, this is getting ridiculous.

I have, as far as I know, no injury, yet my right leg is causing me a world of pain, in which sitting down hurts, standing up hurts and moving around relieves it (mostly). I tried to work early in the week but I couldn’t focus on anything because everything hurt.

So my blog, which was supposed to be about trying out interesting ideas, has become a place for me to moan about how very uncomfortable I am. I remember telling the osteo last week that without pain relief, it could get up to 8/10; Thursday night eclipsed that with something comparable to labour pain.

It’s not going well.

Staying on the move is helping, as is, somewhat surprisingly, lying down on the sore side. But I’m not allowed to do that for too long to make sure everything doesn’t freeze up. So I’m maintaining a delicate balance to manage pain that doesn’t seem to have any actual cause.

Added to this was Slabs going in to hospital for long-awaited surgery, which meant starting my new role as primary carer from Sunday morning.

Next week should be interesting.

On the plus side, I’ve mostly figured out how to wear the disposable contact lenses!

Week 29 summary

What was the best thing about this week?

My Hobart Street Corners Instagram account clocked up its 1000th post on Tuesday.

I started the street corners project in 2018, when a random photo of Murray Street inspired me to start documenting Hobart streets as I saw them at the moment in time I happened to be walking past. It became a long term project that gained a life of its own, so I set up its own Instagram account in 2019.

Here’s photo 1000 on that account, Macquarie and Barrack Street, Friday 26 May 2023 at 11.30 am.

What did I learn this week?

I figured out the benefit of having such low life expectancy in the middle ages. They died before their bodies broke down and they were in constant pain.

I also googled the multifidus muscle after the osteo talked about it last week and I learned it’s a deep muscle of the spinal column and that if it’s weak, it can cause chronic back pain.

What did I notice this week?

While I was waiting outside the hospital, I noticed how the brickwork varies in the same building.

Have they remodelled at some point? Changed the windows? Has it been damaged?

I also found this blast from the past when I was sorting through stuff at my mother’s place.

For people not familiar with Tasmanian supermarkets of the past, Roelf Vos was Northern Tasmania’s version of what is now Woolworths. Roelf Vos emigrated with his family to Tasmania from the Netherlands in 1951. Established in the late 1950s, his stores are reported to have been Tasmania’s first self service supermarkets.

According to Woolworths, Roelf Vos sold his supermarkets to Woolworths in 1982 but they weren’t rebranded until 2000.

I remember as a kid being surprised to learn that Roelf Vos was actually a person, not just the name of the local supermarket.

He was also responsible for constructing the Grindelwald holiday resort north of Launceston (which I knew), and, some further digging tells me, his family is the namesake of Vos constructions (which I did not).

What I’m reading this week

• Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
• Why Does It Still Hurt? by Paul Bieglar