the other side of couch-birthing.

Lol! ...I kinda liked that previous post, and it is indeed a crosspost from another blogsite I am active on (there may be quite a bit of that going on). I think it might be a good idea on this site to tell a little bit about the "other side" of that story, and take out a little bit of the humorous context. (on the other site, I only tell the funny part of the story; most of my readers don't even know that I'm disabled). So if you are a new reader, back out now, and read the other one first!

It's Wednesday now, and I'm still suffering from the overexertion of it.

I had a friend quite a few years back that we had a bit of a "parting of ways" over his handling of a back injury. He was a neat guy, but he really was a bit of a pothead "schemer" who was always trying to come up with "that big score." He hurt his back on a job, then he kept taking more jobs that he amazingly kept injuring his back in.

Now don't get me wrong, he did mess his back up! ...but to this day, I still believe he over-inflated the extent to which is was hurt. I know good and well if he had just got a desk job somewhere, it would have avoided further injuries.

BUT on around his third lawsuit from the third employer since it all began, they had a private investigator filming him changing out the cylinder heads on his van. I think it could have been at least a little less damning; hell, I would have been in those videos as well! I was there to help him for the stuff that was too heavy, and saw how worn out he was after a hard day and how much pain he was in at times.

We had a parting of ways (no ugliness; I just "let" us fall out of touch) after he lost his case for the disability, and then entered a new one for racial discrimination. It was really silly, and I think deep down, even he knew it was bullshit. But there ya go.

I've mused to myself a few times what would happen if some investigator brought out the video equipment with me. It would be amusing when I do stupid shit like move a couch all by myself, but it would have to have some major editing to ever be actually used against me in any sort of court.

I get away with doing a whole lot of shit I really don't have any business doing in the first place! Oddly, it probably tends to be pretty obvious to any kind of onlooker that I probably shouldn't be doing it at all. My ambulatory nature kind of depends on my ability to ignore stuff. When I drive, I have to totally ignore what my sense of motion is telling me; it took me quite a few years to learn how to shut that out!

I do the same with pain, I do the same with nausea. Just because I have the ability to do certain things hardly means I don't suffer for it in other ways. When I was in my 20's, I put an engine in a friends '77 Monty Carlo. I finished it a bit earlier than I expected, and didn't have the engine hoist at the time.

So what did I do?! ...like the dumb kid that I was, I picked up the 350 long-block (engine block with the cylinder heads still attached), set it on my leg while I opened my trunk, and rolled it into the trunk of my car to take back as a core. I'm 6'3" and at the time I weighed in around 160lbs.

I must be awfully strong, huh?!

I went home, and sat down for a little while (I had to go to work in a few hours); when the time came for me to start getting active and take a shower to head to work, I could barely move.

I think it's kind of a wonder I didn't hurt my back or give myself a hernia. When I took my pants off to get in the shower, I had a two foot long bruise going down my leg where I had rested the engine on it! I bounced back quickly enough, although I had trouble with the leg for a couple of days. I was just twenty-something back then though: my, how times have changed!

The couch fiasco has had me moving like a reject from "Night of the Living Dead" for days now! Sometimes I can overexert and bounce back in hours ...most of the time it's closer to days or weeks (months, a few times). I think it's pretty amazing what most anyone can do if they have enough of an adreneline high, but I would probably take the cake.

Oddly, I know I shouldn't have done it; my brother could have made it over the next evening. I might have even found a neighbor to help. But I need to clarrify that I have absolutely no REGRETS about taking it on; in fact, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was a silly thing to do, and hell, to be fair ...I could have even injured myself doing it.

But ya'know ...you just can't stop living because life has dealt you a bad hand of cards! ...I could write volumes on this, but suffice it to say it's still what I live by.

all for now!