Extreme Showering

Yes, Extreme Showering.  It’s a little something that happens quite frequently around here. You’ve no doubt heard of Extreme Sports – where silly people do silly things like hurl themselves off tall buildings or do loop-de-loops in the air on their BMXs – risking life and limb with only minimal protection.  Well now I’d like to introduce you to Extreme Showering, where definite pain and possible injury just add to the first-thing-in-the-morning-fun. 

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) comes with morning stiffness, which means increased pain too. When I only have to shower myself in the morning, the chance of injuring myself is minimal because I’ve learned which movements to be careful with or to avoid altogether. Using my least stiff shoulder/arm/hand to shampoo with, for example, or the no-hands hair rinse. All with the aim of reducing the risk of pulling a muscle or increasing inflammation and pain in a joint or two.  Or three.  

What actually makes Extreme Showering so risky to health is when I have to help my daughter shower. Her Cerebral Palsy is the ataxic kind, where she has low muscle tone and her sense of balance is not so hot. This makes her a little unsteady on her feet, which is most evident when washing her lower limbs. Enter Mum – stiff, sore and probably grumpy – stretching, bending and scrubbing for one of only a few people in the entire world I would gladly injure myself for. 

Extreme Showering: putting your health and well-being in peril while showering with stiff, painful joints.

• Jude x