Rotator Cuff
Apologies for the silence over the last few days, which means, among other things, that Karl Marx (14 March) got left out of the Dead Socialist Watch on this particular trot through the calendar.
Turned out that what I thought was upper arm cramp last week was in fact a rip in the tendon in one of the rotator cuffs in my left shoulder. I noticed at the week-end that I couldn’t really lift my left arm into even a horizontal position, let alone anything higher; on Sunday night I stopped being able to sleep comfortably; and on Monday and Tuesday it became quite inflamed and produced a lot of pain, so I’ve started doing sensible things like going to the doctor and finding out what’s actually going on in there, and I think everything’s on the mend now, with industrial quantities of ibuprofen working its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving magic.
As a Boston Red Sox fan, I thought I knew a lot about rotator cuffs — Pedro Martínez’s rotator cuffs were about as familiar to New Englanders as David Beckham’s metatarsals. But whereas Pedro damaged his RCs by striking out lots of New York Yankees (or something similar), I hurt mine through the altogether more sedentary activity of reading Fénelon on the sofa at home. Perhaps it’d be safer if I gave up reading altogether.
Anyway: I still can’t lift my arm above the horizontal, but now it doesn’t hurt anymore, I don’t really mind.
You may have a condition known as Frozen Shoulder. I had it - it goes away after a while - in my case that was 18 months. It’s a blast.
↓ Quote | Posted 15 March, 2007, 3:24 pmThis page usefully distinguishes the two conditions. I think mine’s the RC problem rather than the FS.
↓ Quote | Posted 15 March, 2007, 3:26 pmNasty! I hope too much blogging isn’t the cause.
(You also missed Walter Crane.)
↓ Quote | Posted 15 March, 2007, 3:35 pmDefinitely Fénelon. He’s got a lot to answer for (though probably still not as much as Louis XIV).
↓ Quote | Posted 15 March, 2007, 4:13 pmGood use of the word “Trot”
↓ Quote | Posted 15 March, 2007, 5:28 pm