After nearly a week, I think I’m finally beginning to process what the doctor was trying to tell me about the pain in my arm. When he told me to rest it and use ice, my first thought was that this was going to improve the condition that causes the pain, but now I’m thinking differently. Now I’m thinking that when he said to let the pain be my guide, he meant that I might as well keep working, because the pain is always going to be there.

So “work till it hurts” apparently means “work till you can’t stand how much it hurts.” And I can live with that. If it’s not going to get any better, maybe it’s not going to get any worse. I can’t let it keep me from doing what needs to be done, so I’m going to let the pain be my guide and work until I can’t stand the pain. And I know from experience that on some days the threshold will be lower than others.

There’s a big red mark on the inside of my arm where my blood was taken yesterday, and at times today I thought that’s what was hurting. But it turns out that it was the same old tendonitis that I’ve been battling for several weeks. And I’m going to keep calling it tendonitis because it needs a name and that’s as close to a name as the doctor gave when he examined me.

As for the blood test results, everything so far looks okay. Not all of the results are in yet, but of the ones I’ve seen, the only negative indicators (they call them “flags”) are on the cholesterol panel. Some are too high and some are too low, but not by any drastic amount. I won’t relax until I know everything about everything, so expect a few more panicky days. But we’re used to that, aren’t we?