• Sleeping Wide Awake

    Nine

    In 2011, a car ran a light and struck me down at a traffic crossing, breaking my right leg and dislocating my ankle. Later, I would learn that as the bones broke, they hooked the nerve, and wishboned, stretching the nerve (and keeping it stretched until surgery remedied the problem over six hours later). So nerve damage was thrown into the mix. And then, the injury incited Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a disconnect between the way my foot and leg communicate with my brain, and how they report sensation, movement, and pain. For two years, I had to do physio three times a day at home and three times…

  • Sleeping Wide Awake

    Five

    When I was sixteen I broke my right arm playing football. I was flipped in midair as I leaped to spoil a certain mark. Complications meant I needed plates inserted. Then there was significant nerve damage – I couldn’t feel the lower half of my right hand, the ring finger, and small finger. I had to wear a brace around my hand that forced my fingers to flex when the rest of the hand flexed. Once I started feeling again, the brace bit excruciatingly into my right hand, particularly my palm. Well, that’s the way it felt thanks to the damage. I started wearing a fingerless glove – the genesis…