Bracing
Thanks to carpel tunnel syndrome, that scourge of the modern world, I've been sleeping in a wrist brace for about a month now. It's black and synthetic and strappy, and looks like a leftover piece of Janet Jackson's wardrobe from the Scream video. It's not the most comfortable thing I've worn to bed, but it pays off in the long run: once upon a time, I could barely brush my teeth in the morning without my entire hand going completely, burningly numb. Opening the mayonnaise jar was a nightmare, and combing my hair was iffy.
Word on the street is that carpel tunnel syndrome is caused by repetitive motion, which worried me. Would I have to wear the brace all the time, like a grown-up version of Joan Cusack's sad extra in Sixteen Candles? I spend practically every waking hour in front of a computer of some sort, so if typing was the enemy I was clearly about to be massacred by it. But no, said my doctor. "Mostly it's how people sleep that clauses problems," he said. "And you look like a curled-into-a-ball girl if ever I saw one."
His observation, in addition to being slightly unsettling, was totally true. So off to the pharmacy I went to purchase what will probably be the only size "Medium" I'll ever own.
That first night I must have put the brace on too tightly. I dreamed that my hand was being savaged by a deranged squirrel, and that no matter what I did it would not leave me alone. In the dream I shook my hand violently, whipping the squirrel around in blurry, squirrelly circles. But it wasn't bothered one bit until I whacked it hard against the wall of my bedroom. I mournfully looked down at its crumpled little body, but then did what any reasonable person would do when faced with an attack-squirrel: I went to the hospital to be checked for rabies.
"I don't think it broke the skin," I assured my dream doctor (who, of course, was much more younger and handsomer than my real doctor).
He examined my unmarked wrist, where the squirrel had been. "Well it must have, because this is full of teeth."
Then I woke up, only to find the brace lying pell-mell across the room.
Since then, I've woken several times to find my wrist oddly flexible and my brace missing, but never to strange dreams of rodent attacks.
It sort of kills me that I live this whole life while I'm asleep, one that I know nothing about. Sometimes I remember my dreams--big, majestic epics with casts of thousands--but usually I wake up a cranky blank slate. I know things are going on, though, because occasionally I'll hear stories about what I said while asleep.
The last time missaurora spent the weekend, I awoke on Saturday night to vague a call from the living room: "Amanda, are you okay?" It turns out that I'd been laughing, in missaurora's words, "like an evil genius. Like you could never laugh when you were awake."
Could I be spending my nights plotting world domination? All I know for sure is that I wish I'd give up sleep-talking and start sleep-writing. At this rate, it's the only way I'm ever going to write a novel.
Word on the street is that carpel tunnel syndrome is caused by repetitive motion, which worried me. Would I have to wear the brace all the time, like a grown-up version of Joan Cusack's sad extra in Sixteen Candles? I spend practically every waking hour in front of a computer of some sort, so if typing was the enemy I was clearly about to be massacred by it. But no, said my doctor. "Mostly it's how people sleep that clauses problems," he said. "And you look like a curled-into-a-ball girl if ever I saw one."
His observation, in addition to being slightly unsettling, was totally true. So off to the pharmacy I went to purchase what will probably be the only size "Medium" I'll ever own.
That first night I must have put the brace on too tightly. I dreamed that my hand was being savaged by a deranged squirrel, and that no matter what I did it would not leave me alone. In the dream I shook my hand violently, whipping the squirrel around in blurry, squirrelly circles. But it wasn't bothered one bit until I whacked it hard against the wall of my bedroom. I mournfully looked down at its crumpled little body, but then did what any reasonable person would do when faced with an attack-squirrel: I went to the hospital to be checked for rabies.
"I don't think it broke the skin," I assured my dream doctor (who, of course, was much more younger and handsomer than my real doctor).
He examined my unmarked wrist, where the squirrel had been. "Well it must have, because this is full of teeth."
Then I woke up, only to find the brace lying pell-mell across the room.
Since then, I've woken several times to find my wrist oddly flexible and my brace missing, but never to strange dreams of rodent attacks.
It sort of kills me that I live this whole life while I'm asleep, one that I know nothing about. Sometimes I remember my dreams--big, majestic epics with casts of thousands--but usually I wake up a cranky blank slate. I know things are going on, though, because occasionally I'll hear stories about what I said while asleep.
The last time missaurora spent the weekend, I awoke on Saturday night to vague a call from the living room: "Amanda, are you okay?" It turns out that I'd been laughing, in missaurora's words, "like an evil genius. Like you could never laugh when you were awake."
Could I be spending my nights plotting world domination? All I know for sure is that I wish I'd give up sleep-talking and start sleep-writing. At this rate, it's the only way I'm ever going to write a novel.