I like the grip adding another place to grab the camera at the bottom, Andrew. It just makes the camera easier to hold onto. I don't mind the extra battery. I don't use the buttons and switches on the grip. OMDS did cheapen it from the last one. It's a few mm larger in every direction and more square and bulky. There was no need for that. The earlier grip had nice curves to meet and match the camera. Still has the high weatherproofing rating. However, OMDS saved some money and removed the four way arrows with the OK button in the center and added the joystick which I can't find any use for. Bah.
I really feel bad for your situation with your back, Andrew. That's because I know. My Dad's car was hit by another in a minor accident around 1955. It cracked a disc and pinched a nerve. The doctors said surgery might fix it, or might make it worse. My Dad had a friend who did almost exactly the same and he had the surgery.......early 1950s surgery. His right leg was numb for the rest of his life and he could no longer walk well, permanently. My Dad passed on the surgery and was in pain for the rest of his life. His back would splint up due to the pain and he could not straighten up. A Chiropractor friend of his showed me how and I would get astride him on the floor and work his back through hot towels. I could actually get his back to loosen up. I could feel it and would work on him until my arms and hands were numb and sore. It really helped him and made me feel good, too. Oh God, I wish I could rub his back again. Then I broke some of my own cervical vertebrae and C1-C4 fusion......1971 fusion. Not the slick fusions they're doing today with the computer generated titanium plate. I have wire and my own ribs in my fusion and I get into syndromes like you are in now. I try lots of things and some work sometimes and not other times. I recently got a length of
2 1/2" OD PVC pipe. I put it between mattress and box spring and it just slightly raises a narrow hump in the mattress. I've found the right place, for now, between my knees and ankles for the hump and it is helping. I was in Costco yesterday and I also was leaning over the basket for support, not kidding.
In these times of disintegration I often think of Bette Davis. I'm wondering if I have told you this before, ? In one of her last interviews before she died, she was dressed to the nines, being interviewed by an adoring and awestruck Dick Cavett. Just one corner of her mouth didn't work from a recent stroke. She was witty, articulate, and full of life. At the end of the interview, Cavett asked her if she wished to say anything to her fans. She was dying of metastasizing breast cancer but she didn't tell. She was wearing a sharp business suit and a hat with a coarse veil. She raised the veil, broke the fourth wall, looked directly into the camera and said, in her crisp Yankee accent, "Getting Old Ain't Fer Sissies." I was still young and I just felt sorry for her. Now I Know. I can only imagine the force of will she had to use to do that long interview. She had it to spare. She was one of my favorites. She died not long after that, but I'm still here. Nyaaa.
The sleep loss is the worst thing. A lot of stress from the pain and it isn't reduced by a few hours of good sleep as it could be. When the pain is bad and I know I'm not going to sleep I simply get stoned. A Professor and Surgeon of Neural Surgery at The University of California, Irvine told me to do that in 1971 to deal with painful therapy after the broken neck. It slightly reduces pain, but lets me relax and not obsess, nor be angry about the pain, and go to sleep, Four to six hours and it wears off and I wake in pain, but I have slept. No biggie, everybody should do what they want.....Just call me Old Leatherlungs and get me a pepperoni pizza. 🥱
Colonel Colt said his six shooter was 'The Great Equalizer.' Nonsense, it is pain which is the great equalizer. Rich
