After aggravating my right arm yesterday, I woke up today with a sharp, shooting pain every time I moved it. I wore the brace all day, and the pills helped, too. But there were just some things that were almost impossible to do, at least without wincing and moaning. Locking and unlocking the front door, for example. I learned how hard that was when I got home from the game yesterday. I remembered that feeling today and left the door unlocked when I ran my errands this morning.

The first thing I noticed this morning was how painful it was to make coffee. The hardest part was pouring the old dregs out of the carafe and rinsing it, because it involved twisting my arm and shaking the water out. Raising and lowering the recliner has become so hard that I leave it with the foot rest up, so that I have to straddle it and sort of fold myself into the chair when I want to sit in it. Which is a lot of the time.

Then when I did leave for the post office, I got in the car, put the key in the ignition, and started whimpering, because I didn’t want to reach down and turn the key. Even with the brace on it was painful, and I was half afraid I’d get there and not want to turn the key again to come home. I briefly considered leaving the car running while I dashed into the post office, but in the end I just bit the bullet and did what I had to do. (And by the way, making right turns is a lot easier than making left turns.)

Speaking of doing what I had to do, the hardest room for me to operate in is the bathroom. For one thing, I usually take the brace off my wrist before I go in there, and that makes everything a little tenuous. Buttoning my jeans is a test every time (and Levi’s button fly seemed like such a good idea for so long). And wiping my ass? Don’t even think about it (or at least try not to).

I mean, I do it, but it hurts.