The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
1:13pm on Friday, 29th April, 2005:
Anecdote
I awoke at 12:45am this morning with cramp in my left calf. It was absolute agony for about 2 seconds, before I managed to shut it off (the cramp, not the agony — if I have a muscle killing itself, I want to know when it stops). I spent the rest of the night sleeping fitfully, waking up whenever it was about to trip its trigger again, just in time to save myself. The pain is going to be with me for perhaps 3 days, assuming it doesn't actually go into cramp again. I'll be walking with a limp for most of today. If I ever got it in both calves, I'd need a wheelchair.
People tend to get cramp in the same particular part of the body. My wife gets it in her toes; my grandfather used to get it in his chest (youch!); I get it in my calf.
I'm actually pretty good with it. For years, I didn't get it at all, and indeed I haven't had it for perhaps 3 years anyway. Something must have set it off, but what?
Oh, I know what...
My hotel room is hot. There's a radiator near the bed that throws out very warm air, all the time. I tried to switch it off, but failed. Consequently, I slept on the bed rather than in it, but was still too warm. I was sweating and kept having to drink water. It's the overheating that gave me cramp.
Hmm, that maybe explains why when I flush the lavatory it leaks water out of the cistern pipe, which I noticed yesterday. The water in the pipe is cold, but the metal seal is warm, so it's slightly bigger through expansion, and water leaks out when the valve is released.
I now have a window open, right above the radiator, and if that doesn't work I'll give the air conditioner a try. It's noisy (as, annoyingly, is the fridge) but if I don't get sleep I'd rather it be because of noise than cramp.
Still, at least not everything is bad. The chocolate I brought with me has melted to just the near-but-not-quite-liquid state that I enjoy the most.
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Copyright © 2005 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).