How to stop laptops from falling on your head

I awoke as Magic Dude got ready for his early shift this chilly Sunday. I found that my hints of a sore throat had increased overnight and I was warm and yet really cold at the same time. Uh-oh, I can’t afford to be ill, the knock-on effects with my condition is severe and I have studying to do that I’m already way behind on. So my lovely Magic Dude brought me a cup of tea and the laptop before he left and made sure that I had ‘warp capability’ (i.e. that the wifi was switched on 😉 ).

I set the laptop up on  the adjustable-height stand (which is an absolute saviour for allowing me to use the laptop without putting the weight on my CRPS legs) but the near-fainting then decided it wanted to join the party (one of my Dysautonomia symptoms) and I had to lay down. So I did what I have done before…. I cranked up the height of the laptop stand so that it looked like this…

My eyes must’ve thought they were missing an opportunity coz they then decided to join in, too. As I tried to focus on the screen my eyeballs roamed around misbehaving and not allowing me to see what I was trying to look at. It was all getting a bit silly, and then when I then moved my painful legs the laptop fell on my head!

Ouch!

I can read the signs. When they’re as unsubtle as this it’s kinda hard not to! I took this as a suggestion that I put the do-stuff idea to one side and instead I snuck back under the covers and phased in and out of sleepy consciousness until midday. Not the norm’, but managing this condition includes knowing when to say ‘zzzz’. Most of us with CRPS and/or Dys’ are familiar with endless lack of sleep, so when a day arrives where my body will try to fake some not-quite-sleep then I’ll take what I can get, thank-you!

Now I’m up, I’ve done my first physio’ of the day, and I’ve finally sought out the other half of the velcro the Open University furnished me with. The laptop stand that was sent out to me to help me to try to study despite the health issues was already decorated with a couple of strips of velcro. The idea was that I would then stick the other part of the velcro to the laptop so that it would not move on the stand or, in the case of a near-fainty person, it would not be quite so likely to fall on my head! But the laptop was so shiny and new I couldn’t bring myself to deface it with ill-person-velcro! Hah! Not so any more, I have velcro and I will use it. My head demands it! 😉

It’s funny how no matter how comfortable and accepting we become with regards to our conditions and limitations, there’s still the odd little thing which we get stubborn about on principle. It’s taken me nearly a year to get to the stage where sticking bits of velcro on my laptop (my constant companion and portal to the outside world) does not seem such a violation of shiny tech or such a feel of being abnormal enough to require velcro. Daft eh? But truly, if something works, make use of it. That’s how we enable ourselves to do more.

So onwards with the velcro! My little interim task for the day!

x