Home Sweet Home & Touchy Rotator Cuffs

Still Happy

So on to news on the home front. I'm still ecstatic with my new place. Aside from the tick I pulled off my ankle, and the occasional centipede, spider, HUMONGOID ant or termite or whatever the hell they were, traipsing across my living room from the forest out back, everything is still great. The place gets just a li'l more decorated each week. The two majorly unfinished rooms are still the library and game room. I'm still playing with ideas of furniture switches. But I won't be doing any moving or lifting, though, until my shoulder's better.

Enforced Stay of Activity

Oh yeah... I don't think I've mentioned anything about my shoulder. Well, seems I've somehow enflamed my right rotator cuff. Not sure how. I don't remember any specific action or event after which I said "that hurt my shoulder". It could very well have been a cumulative thing: after all the moving, lugging of boxes, and installing of shelves.

It started a couple of Fridays ago, when it hurt my shoulder to push my arm out to the side to use my mouse. So I rearranged my computer setup so that my mouse is now just below and in front of the keyboard. Which is better, but my shoulder just kept getting worse. Over that weekend, I thought it was a pinched nerve. I went to the chiropractor, but he didn't help things much. So I next tried Urgent Care on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is when I found out about the rotator cuff thing.

Limited Options

Evidently, there's not much that can be done for it. He gave me mega doses of anti-inflamatories (Ibuprofen) and suggested I use a sling. Okay, now, I can't get squat accomplished with my right arm in a sling. And even still, no matter what position I held my arm, it hurt. Whether it was a sharp pain, or one of those nasty deep aches, or just plain sore... it all radiated down my arm to my elbow. It was incredibly and frustratingly distracting. I'm sure my coworkers got REAL sick and tired of hearing about it. At night, I could take my migraine meds so I could sleep.

Somewhat Restful Weekend

I vowed to completely rest my arm all of this past weekend... and had mixed results. I actually spent a good portion of Saturday morning in a make-shift sling. But then I had to get ready for dinner. I'd promised Mom she'd get a weekend to herself to do anything she pleased, which meant I'd cook. We'd ORIGINALLY intended to do it the week before (which I cooked for, anyway, for Father's Day) but then the car thing came up, so her having a free weekend went out the window.

But it was an easy dinner (Pop wanted Mac & Cheese with hot dogs... can't get much easier than that), so it wasn't too bad. We've temporarily switched Sunday Family Dinner to Saturday Family Dinner. During the Summer, when our shows on USA on Sunday nights (The 4400 and Dead Zone) are new.

Then I was getting all the stuff I'd taken OUT of Paulie (my faithful old Toyota) and thrown in the library, put INTO Ivy (my new Mitsubishi). I'll get into Paulie and Ivy in another post. But the point is, with all the in and out and gettin stuff situated, I wrenched the shoulder again a bit.

Sunday, I didn't do much but go see Episode III with Mom (I drove :D), and then watched one of her netflix movies at her place: Cellular. (I liked both) So I think I made up for whatever damage I caused on Saturday. Lots of lying about and living with ice on my shoulder.

Positive Results?

I think it's payed off... to a certain degree. It seems to be a LI'L better now. The pain still radiates, but it's more of a sore kinda pain... and not that rediculously distracting ache. I haven't bitched about it once today. :) The doc has said that if it still doesn't show much improvement in another week or so, we can try a steroid shot. And the chiropractor has suggested ultrasound therapy.

So we'll see. Hopefully, it's making progress, though.