Hoisting sucks

We have been heading to a certain point for a while now. I suppose it's a bit like the opposite of a developmental milestone really; the point at which my back says "actually knobhead please stop making me withstand all 26kg of Nate as I might actually break and then you would be well screwed". 

Well consider that "milestone" reached. Yesterday i felt a pull, and a stiffness in my back. Nothing bad, but a warning nonetheless. 

You see yesterday was a day of screaming and crying, Nate not me (although I felt like it). Nate has ATR-X syndrome, for which there isn't a massive amount of information. What we do know however is that it associated with a large amount of abdominal pain and distress. The only break from this was gained while playing with puppies ( and I may have lifted him onto the floor for this...). One of these puppies is soon to be ours, but that's another blog post entirely.

The automatic response of any parent seeing their child in distress is to cuddle them in and so I spent much of yesterday picking Nate up and half dragging him onto my knee for comfort. With a hoist this takes a good deal longer, not a speedy or effect response. My attempts went something like this:

...Ok now just let me work out which of these loops on the sling I'm using again...ok you're going up! Oh shit is it charged? Right I'll move you to the sofa and...oh now that doesn't work I can't get you onto it...err I know I'll swing you in and lower it at the same time...shit no that's not working either I need to be a fucking octopus...

*gives up, hoists onto floor, cuddles Nate on the floor* 

So it all went well. 

This got me thinking. We had hoists put into the old house which we rarely used. Partly because I could manage most of the time, but also because no one actually showed us how to use them. Hoists and slings arrived and that was it. No advice about loops on slings or how to work this out, no being shown how to attach it to the hoist or advice about getting the sling on Nate either on a bed or in a chair. Nothing. It's no wonder that so many carers suffer from back problems. Even after the battle is won to get the equipment you need, there's no training to actually use any of it. Or maybe that's just our experience? I asked my lovely portage worker much much later about slings and she showed me what to do, but to be honest I forgot much of what was said. I wasn't in the greatest shape mentally and struggled to retain any information at all. It's purely through training I had to do for other reasons that I have any idea about rolling on and off slings and towels, or using hoists at all.

 That can't be right can it? 

So now I accept I need to use the portable hoist, but it doesn't do everything I need. It can't lift my crying child onto my knee for comfort, it can't fit into tight spaces, I miss the hand around my neck as I carry Nate, and it looks terrible. There is a far greater issue too, the fact Nate will be confined to his chair when out and about wherever we go. 

The only answer I can think of is to get into bed with Nate on a morning and stay there all day.