Blog

Hello again! You may have noticed that I’ve been quiet lately. But I haven’t been lazy, or even too busy with work, to write anything; I’ve been taking time out for my health.

What’s wrong?

I saw my doctor because of pain in my hand, arm and shoulder. Diagnosed with RSI, I was ordered to have 3 weeks away from the computer to rest.

How did it happen?

I was on a tight deadline to create a series of detailed vector illustrations, so, working at a furious pace in Illustrator, didn’t take regular breaks from the computer (silly, I know). After a couple of days my hand was pretty much fused into the shape of the mouse, becoming The Claw, and as I continued to work despite the pain, it moved up my arm all the way to my shoulder.

I’ve been using computers quite intensively for the past 14 years and occasionally experienced some mild aching in my hand, mainly in the fingers I use for mouse buttons. But the pain would go away overnight and I’d be fine again. This time however, the pain wasn’t going away, and was even keeping me awake at night.

So I finally saw sense and visited my GP. I was signed off of work at the day job and any thoughts of freelancing or personal projects had to be pushed aside. I admit I was reluctant to go because although I suspected RSI, I didn’t want it confirmed and was didn’t want to be on sick leave when I had plenty of work to do both at the day job and for my own business. I had made plans to work on redesigning my website, among other things, and have had to postpone it for now.

Now that I’m back at work, I have to be careful using the mouse. And I have to take regular breaks: I’m not going to let a tight deadline get in the way of my health again.
I’ve also had to rethink my workspace: I’ve now got 2 mice, so that I can swap hands and do the non-design-y stuff with my left hand and rest my right hand, and I have a new ergonomic keyboard with wrist rests.

Sick pay

I’m in a lucky position that I have a day job as well as my freelancing. At the day job, there is sick pay; there wouldn’t be any if I freelanced full-time. Instead I would have had to rely on my savings to pay the mortgage for this month since I wouldn’t have earned enough to cover it otherwise.

I’m also lucky that as I live in the UK, I have access to the NHS and therefore had no doctors bills to pay.

A valuable asset

The past month has made me realise just how valuable a freelancer’s health is, perhaps more so than any equipment, software or expertise. I’ve always taken it for granted and whenever I was ill I just worked though it in order to keep my commitments to my clients. I’ve worked through numerous colds, coughs, stomach bugs, and didn’t even take any time off when I sprained and fractured my ankle earlier this year. But this time was different; it was working that was making me ill.

So it seems that I need to be more careful. I am resolved to take care of my health by eating well, exercising regularly and taking breaks from the computer. I also need to make sure I set aside enough money in my savings to cover the mortgage and my other expenses so that when I get ill I can take time out to get well again.

How about you – do you take care of your health?

Image credit: SXC