Introduction & Early Stages

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February 2008

Monday, February 11, 2008

When you have arthritis everything can come to a screeching halt, and for no apparent reason. This weekend was one of those times. I woke up Saturday morning with the worst shoulder pain – as though I slept on a rocky cliff spiked with broken glass. The pain stayed with me all weekend, and this morning seemed to have disappeared. I was freaking out all day Saturday – and Sunday – because it crept into every other part of my life. My stomach hurt from it, my fingers tingled, my hair stood up on the back of my neck (no hair on my back).

And then it went away; like magic. Which really aggravated me. I mean I was happy that it did go away, but I would have liked it to have been for a more meaningful reason than just black magic. It ruined my weekend – the least I can do is write about it.

Stupid shoulder.

Monday, February 25, 2008

This weekend was pretty intense. I moved upstairs to a new apartment, and all went well. That is, until it came time to organize the records (yes, as in the vinyl records I collect). My mother was helping me by standing on a step stool and I was handing her each record wiped down for her to shelve (we had a nice little system going). Then I got bored and decided to lift the entire box of records for her to reach easily; and that was the beginning of the end.

What followed was a two-pronged reaction: first was the pain that showed its ugly head, and quickly. Then came the guilt from my mother – which lasted nearly as long as the pain itself – asking me why I had to lift the heavy box ‘all by myself’. I cringe at the thought of what that felt like. The kind of pain that shuts your whole system down – and hurts all over, even though it is coming from one place.

“I don’t know” I tried to explain. Maybe because I got bored handing each record up to her; and a box of records shouldn’t be such a hard thing to lift. I guess I was wrong.

One thing is for sure: I wasn’t cut out to be a mover. Thank goodness we weren’t moving a piano.