Monday, August 13, 2018

Not an easy or happy day

Yesterday, about 4:00, my shoulder and back suddenly told me that they had had enough and were not going to work anymore.  I know I had been pushing it quite a bit, and had been trying to pace the work, but obviously I hadn't been too successful at reducing the physical stress.  I did almost nothing for the rest of the day.  Any movement, especially of my left shoulder caused pain.  I applied heat and Voltaren liberally before bed, and managed to get some sleep, but any movement today is still painful.  This is the worst my shoulder has been since I hurt it June 25th.

The work I was doing was cutting fabric with my rotary cutter, and machine quilting--both are essential activities for the any sort of quilting activity--not only art quilting.  Since David's stroke, and thumb problem, he can no longer cut for me.   Paying someone else to do my quilting for me is not feasible. $$$

With all of the problems I've had over the past 6-7 years, I've had to change or adapt a lot of my activities, both in daily life, and in the studio.  Now I'm facing the possibility that I can no longer adapt.  There are generally speaking four steps in the rehabilitation response sequence following an injury that results in some sort of disability--adapt the persons method/basic ability  of accomplishing a task, adapting the task itself with the use of tools, finding a completely different method of accomplishing the task, or, finally, have the task done by someone else.  This sequence can be flexible depending on each person's unique living situation.   At this point I'm fearful that I've run out of viable options.  The only choice I have right now is to not do any studio work, in hopes that, over time, the shoulder will heal enough that I can consider going back into the rehab sequence, and re-visit some of the steps.  This would be quite a "leap of faith".  

Worry over all of this has resulted in a very uncomfortable day, and quite a few teary periods.  To top it all up, Poker Stars has been having technical problems, and even that sort of diversion isn't  available to me.  So my plan for the evening is to sit and watch re-runs of Antiques Road Show.  Oh Joy!!

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