Four things I’ve learnt from working with chronic pain

The last day of February every year is International RSI Awareness day. And this year, for me, marks 20 years since I was first diagnosed with RSI. So, it seemed like a good point at which to look back on how chronic pain has affected the way I live and work over the past two decades.

To quickly recap, I started suffering the classic symptoms of RSI, shooting pains in my right hand and wrist, not long after I’d switched from a career as a classroom EFL teacher to one working all day every day at a computer in ELT publishing. Over the period that followed, I learnt a lot about repetitive strain injury and how it’s caused by sitting in a tense awkward position, often with a poor desk setup, doing small repeated movements, especially with a mouse. 

I also discovered that my pain issues stretched far beyond my right hand and that initial crisis was a trigger for a whole load of underlying musculoskeletal problems. As well as the sensitisation of the nerves running through my right hand, arm, shoulder and neck, I discovered that an old shoulder injury turned out to be a permanently dislocated collarbone which was making my whole right side wonky and unstable. Then, added into the mix was a degree of hypermobility, a condition that means that my skeleton and the tendons attached to it are particularly loose and stretchy, meaning that my frame can’t take the strain of holding my body in one position for very long. All of which has led to a messy chronic pain condition that’s had a huge impact on my life and work. It’s a topic I could write about endlessly, but here are the top four things I’ve learnt.

#1 Pacing myself

I soon discovered that I couldn’t manage a regular full-time job. I have good patches and bad patches, I’m better at working in short bursts with breaks in between and I have to fit my work around what I can physically manage. So, being freelance gives me more freedom to manage how and when I work. For any freelancer though, trying to achieve a schedule that gives you a steady flow of work is an incredible challenge. Work comes in fits and starts, projects get delayed, they run over, and sometimes get cancelled altogether. Most freelancers end up agreeing to more than they’d like just so that if one thing’s delayed or cancelled, they have something else to cover the time. And then when it all comes at once, they put in extra hours, work evenings and weekends, and just juggle their time to fit it all in. For me, however, that’s not an option. I simply can’t afford to get into a position where I’m working extra hours because my body will break down and everything will grind to a halt. That means I have to be conservative about the amount of work I take on, only agreeing to as much as I can reasonably cope with; 15-20 billed-for hours a week is ideal, 25 for the odd week at a push. That leaves me really vulnerable to those delays and cancellations though. If I’ve only got one project in my diary and that suddenly disappears at short notice, then I simply have no money coming in. I’ve got used to having a significantly lower income than my peers, but at times, with bills to pay and nothing in the bank, it’s definitely a source of stress and frustration.

#2 Avoiding the fiddly bits

Contrary to many people’s impression of RSI, for me at least, straightforward typing isn’t particularly problematic. That’s especially true with ELT materials where you’re very rarely typing long stretches of text, it’s mostly short sentences with thinking time in-between and doesn’t put that much strain on my hands. What gets me is all the fiddly stuff navigating around documents and formatting text either using a mouse or repeated keystrokes (such as lots of paging up and down). Although I use a graphics tablet instead of a mouse because I find it more comfortable, there are still certain things that are really problematic. My biggest bugbear is anything that involves highlighting specific sections of text, in order to cut and paste, or change the format. Trying to highlight exactly the right words and characters involves a degree of tension and control in your hand and wrist no matter what device you’re using and it’s that focused tension that really causes me the most pain, especially if it’s repeated over and over again.

I’m perfectly happy just typing text into a straightforward Word document and even using a template with Word styles isn’t a problem once you get into the swing of it. The projects I hate are the ones, often for digital materials, that require you to fill in lots of different fields with codes for exercise types, that involve copying and pasting the same instructions numerous times, repeating the same text for answer keys and audio scripts and artwork directions. I’ve worked on a couple of projects where getting the initial content down “on paper” took up a fraction of the time compared with filling in field after field of text in what amounted to no more than data input. Those are the jobs that I now avoid.

#3 Not standing around

Perhaps the number one most frustrating aspect of my health though is something that affects me both socially and professionally. For me, standing around for any length of time gets really uncomfortable. It can be a tricky one for people who know me to get their head around because in many ways I’m quite fit. I walk a lot – I’m currently walking around 20 miles a week as part of a walking challenge – and I don’t look like a hobbly old lady. But for me, there’s a huge difference between walking along at pace and standing around or even mooching about slowly – it puts my body under a whole load of different strains. On a bad pain day, just standing about for a few minutes can leave me unable to think about anything other than sitting down in a comfortable chair. Add to that standing around holding a drink (really painful for my arm and shoulder) or standing around with a bag on my shoulder (so uncomfortable I now avoid it at all costs) and the prospect of any kind of social or networking event that isn’t going to involve comfortable chairs fills me with dread.

It’s a real killer, because I really enjoy being sociable and chatting to people, whether they’re friends or colleagues. But unless I’m going into a situation that I’ll be able to control, such as meeting in a café where I know we’ll sit down, I find myself avoiding situations where I might end up  uncomfortable, distracted and wishing I could leave. That gets amplified at events which I’ve had to travel to (another potential source of discomfort) and at which I’m going to have to spend extended lengths of time without any respite.  It makes me feel like an unsociable grouch which I’m really not … honest!

#4 Perspective

If all that’s sounding a bit negative, there is one major positive to having a chronic health condition and that’s the perspective it gives you on life. For me, work-life balance isn’t a luxury add-on, it’s absolutely essential. If I’m overdoing it, my body will tell me so in no uncertain terms and I have no choice but to listen. I’ve learnt not to let my working life get out of perspective. That’s not to say I don’t ever get annoyed and frustrated by stuff, but I’m pretty good at stepping away from my desk, taking a break, going out for a walk, then coming back and dealing with the problem before it gets out of hand. Over the years, I’ve got better at standing my ground, speaking up when expectations are unrealistic and if necessary, just walking away. I love my work and I want to do a professional job, but you know, sometimes there are just more important things.

... like a cup of coffee in the sunshine ...

Entrepreneurial micro-business or ELT Deliveroo?

In my working life, I inhabit a number of different worlds.

There’s the general ELT world I mingle with at conferences, events and online that includes teachers, teacher trainers, publishing folk, academics and other freelancers. We talk about teaching, methodology, technology, language and yes, occasionally, the state of ELT.

Then there’s the ELT writing crowd, other freelance writers and editors who congregate face-to-face and online via groups like MaWSIG and ELT Freelancers, as well as through various Facebook groups. Like most colleagues, we largely enjoy a good moan … about our latest hassles and project nightmares, about the stresses of being a freelancer subject to the whims of the publishing industry and inevitably, about how things ‘ain’t like they used to be’. They are, however, also a very supportive bunch, always happy to offer encouragement, practical advice and, most importantly, a good laugh. And at times, it can be pretty inspiring to see the varied and exciting things we all get up to.

I also occasionally dip a toe into the world of local networking groups full of (largely female) entrepreneurs and small business owners who seem to spend a lot of time and energy (and money!) on branding and marketing and business plans and coaching and serious networking … the idea of an ‘elevator pitch’ or asking for ‘referrals’ at an ELT event would make most folk run a mile, but for these ladies, it’s all an essential part of the game. If that sounds a touch ‘sniffy’, it really isn’t meant to be. I don’t quite feel part of the ‘networking gang’ largely because my work doesn’t really fit their model. Most of them are customer-facing businesses (fitness instructors, therapists, consultants of some kind) who need to create a brand and market it to members of the public (and each other!). Some are small businesses with staff and premises and physical products to sell. And whilst a lot of the chat in these circles doesn’t really apply to me and my context, I do still meet some interesting people and I often pick up ideas that are tangentially useful or that I can adapt to be relevant.

How I see myself professionally varies enormously depending on who I’ve been hanging out with and how work’s going at any one time. I don’t quite feel like I’m a small business or an entrepreneur, but after a particularly inspiring networking event or talk, I err towards the idea of being a successful, funky little micro-business. After a successful talk at an ELT conference, discussing language and pedagogy with all kinds of different people, I can see myself as a budding ‘expert’ in my field with things to say and stuff to contribute. A lot of the time though, I’m just a slightly frustrated and disillusioned hack writer churning out ‘content’ in less-than-ideal conditions and barely scraping together a living (for the record, I earn considerably less than the average UK salary and my average yearly income has barely risen over 20 years of freelancing).

Earlier this week, a radio programme – the Digital Human on Radio 4 – made me stop and think again about work and my relationship with it. The programme explored how, as a society, we’ve become intent on finding ways to use technology to make our lives easier, more ‘frictionless’. It asked where all the time we’ve supposedly saved goes and it looked into how our work and home lives have increasingly merged, especially those of us involved in the gig economy. One anecdote from anthropologist, Jan English-Lueck really struck a chord with me:

“I remember talking to a woman who had a really bad problem with carpal tunnel and she’d given up camping, she’d given up reading books, she’d given up everything. And she held up her hands and said ‘I save these for my workplace’.” 

As many of you will know, I’ve been managing a chronic pain condition for nearly 20 years now. I’ve given up many things over the years, but in the past few months, my pains have been particularly troublesome and I’ve found myself giving up driving, giving up going to events that involve lots of standing around or sitting in one place (cinema, gigs, theatre) and increasingly, opting out of social events because at the end of the day, I’m so shattered, I just want to collapse into a fug of painkillers. Am I saving what strength and ability I have for work at the expense of other things in my life? Probably. Because I need to work to earn money and pay the bills, and as a freelancer, my income is unstable, I can’t afford to turn down work or miss deadlines, I don’t get sick pay or paid holidays. 

The programme got me wondering whether I’m really an entrepreneurial micro-business with the freedom to choose what I work on and to fit my working hours around other things or whether it’s all just a kind of ELT Deliveroo without the perks of the reflective jacket?

I really don’t know the answer and I’ve flipped between the two poles – and all points in-between – just in the course of writing this post.  What’s your relationship with your working life? Do you see yourself as a business, a creative entrepreneur, an expert, as a gun for hire, a hack writer or a harmless drudge?

A New Society of Authors Bristol Group

Yesterday evening, I went along to the first meeting of the new Society of Authors Bristol Group. I’ve been a member of the Society for more than 10 years and I try to go along to their events when I can, but they’re often in London, which is a bit of a trek unless I can combine it with something else. So I’m quite excited at the prospect of something more local.

As ever, it was a fascinating mix of writers from different fields, with several novelists, a writer for young adults, a ghost-writer, one other ELT writer like myself, plus people who’ve written plays, short stories and poetry. The mix, inevitably, makes these events slightly less focused than the ELT groups I’m part of, but over the years, there have been all kinds of useful snippets that I’ve taken away from SoA events and I’ve got to meet lots of interesting people.

As this was the first meeting, it was all about discussing how we want the group to work. Three local SoA members, Jonathan Pinnock, Margot Arendse and Jean Burnett, helped to set things up and Anna Ganley from the SoA came along to talk about the work she does helping set up and support other local SoA groups. Rather rashly, I offered to write this post as a summary of the first meeting. I didn’t take any notes, so don’t expect perfect minutes, but hopefully, I can just summarise some of the main points. Here goes …

Where and when?

We met at The Square, in Berkley Square, Bristol, a private members club which the group has membership of, for the next year at least, to allow us to use a room there for our meetings. They have comfy chairs, a bar and disabled access via a lift.

The initial plan is to have meetings every two months, with the next in January, probably at a similar early-evening time – we met at 7 and went on until nearly 9.

Who?

The group is open to any SoA members in the area. Although it’s been set up as SoA Bristol, there was general agreement that we would like to include members from Bath and from the surrounding area as well. Although the bi-monthly meetings will probably be in Bristol for now, we talked about the possibility of arranging some meetings or events in Bath too.

What?

The big question then remained as to what we want the group to do. I won’t try to cover all the specific suggestions here, but as we have a diverse membership, we discussed covering a mix of topics to appeal to everyone. We talked about having different speakers both from local contacts and organized via SoA HQ. We also spoke about how the group can be a hub for people to meet and then maybe arrange their own smaller groups (formally or informally) with a particular special interest. I’m certainly keen to get together a local Educational Writers group in some form. We discussed how the group might become involved in wider events, such as the current Bristol Festival of Literature, or arrange events to involve an audience of non-members, readers, etc. And we all agreed that as well as speakers and organized events, the social aspect of the group should be key too. Cheers to that!

Next steps

Based on the ideas already put forward, the group organizers are planning to put together some form of questionnaire to send out to all SoA members in the area to ask for their input. So if you’re an SoA member in  the general Bristol and Bath area, do look out for that and please take the time to fill it out.

In the meantime, there’s already a Bristol Society of Authors Facebook page. It’s a closed group, which means that you click on the button to ask to join. Hopefully, this will become a place to share not just news of the group’s activities, but also links to other things going on locally of interest to members. And if you’re on Twitter, I’ve started a #SoABristol hashtag to use and follow.

I came away excited about the possibilities for the group and I’m already planning to meet up for a coffee with a writer I met who lives nearby #lovenetworking