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My elbow started hurting a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t surprise me too much. I keep pretending I’m trying to get into shape and I figured I strained something lifting my 20-pound weights. But by bedtime, my elbow had blown up like someone had inserted a half-filled water balloon under my skin. By the next morning, the slightest bend or twist shot bullets of agony up my arm.
I was unhappy.
It was Sunday. I wasn’t dying, or even bleeding, so I waited until Monday to see the doctor rather than spend my football-watching time in emergency. Monday morning, the doctor glanced at my elbow, asked a couple of questions with obvious disinterest, and said, “You have ulnar sjeoigowhihwei.” Or something that made equal sense.
She added, firmly, “You’ve got to stop what you’re doing.”
Stop what? Sitting in her office? Surreptitiously scratching my armpit? Watching “Being Human” for too many hours in a row?
But I knew what she meant. Stop driving. Stop lifting weights. STOP USING THE COMPUTER.
How about I stop trying to breathe, too?
She gave me some anti-inflammatories, which helped, and then I stopped what I was doing. For three whole days, I let others do the driving, cooking, and weight-lifting. I compromised with the computer thing by typing left-handed.
Heres me, typeing left=hasded.
Typos aside, it turns out my right hand is the better speller. More than once, I stopped and stared at a freshly typed word, thinking, “That can’t be right.” Or “Is there one L or two in ‘peanut butter’?”
It wasn’t until I let my right hand rest on the keyboard that the correct spelling came to me. I’m not kidding! Someone should do a study.
After a week or so of dedicated left-handedness, my left arm started to hurt. (You saw that coming, didn’t you.) Now I’d settle for being one-handed.
Marie Loughin's "I WANNA BE . . ." 
LOL! Sorry to hear about your arm. That’s a bummer. 😦 I had a great-grandfather who was ambidexterous (but that didn’t improve my spelling any).
Do they actually DO anything? Tim’s shoulder hurt like the dickens and he took the anti inflammatory the Dr perscribed even though it irritated his stomach to the point of pain equal to his shoulder; but it never seemed to improve anything; I think he finally just gave up on them. I can think of 2-3 more examples of how these drugs didn’t help at all but none off hand where they did. Is it a Drs way of saying “take these until the pain from your stomach ulcer makes you forget about that other pain that I can’t help you with.” 😛
Well, yes, actually. I think they did. At least, initially. The swelling went down almost immediately and the pain decreased to a manageable level. But the pain plateaued after the first couple of days on the anti-inflams, so maybe a little rest helped as much or more than the drug. I finished the prescription but didn’t renew and I couldn’t tell the difference. I guess at some point you just have to heal.
I’m really sorry about your arm… But the peanut butter thing made me laugh so hard my roommate thought I was going insane.
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“Is there one L or two in ‘peanut butter’?”” — ahahaha!
I hope you’re long since recovered. I hate the “stop doing what you’re doing” method of treatment, though. I want to hear “here’s how you can keep doing what you’re doing and quit injuring yourself”. 😉
Sort of recovered. At least my elbow isn’t swollen any more. I still haven’t done the “stop what you’re doing” thing, though I did enjoy several weeks of therapeutic massage…