Wow, that was stupid

I've been dealing with a certain amount of pain in my arm lately. Usually just wrap it in one of them ThermaCare thingies, and it eases enough for me to do whatever I have to do.

While I'm not positive about the cause, I attribute it, in general, to the shithole in which I live. I figure it's either the result of the non-ergonomic computer set-up I have here (computer on coffee table) or just the bizarre way I sit on the couch with my arm sorta over the side of it. In either event -- or some other circumstance -- arm hurts. It has been going on for weeks now, but never actually stopped me from doing anything. Doesn't really hurt when I type or write or drive -- it just hurts when I raise it. (For example, every time I put a mug of water in the microwave for tea. The microwave is one of those over-stove models, and the lifting hurts.) But, y'know, no big.

Let's just fast forward to this weekend. I visited my sister in Connecticut. I actually thought this might be good for the arm -- to be away from my crappy non-ergonomic set-up for a few days. And my arm was feeling better by this morning.

Until such time as I (in my infinite wisdom) got on the flight home and hoisted my carry-on into the overhead bin. Actually, it was hoisted only partway into the bin when my forearm decided to tell me in no uncertain terms that this was a really bad idea and completely dropped out of the hoisting process altogether. I tried using only the other arm, but got a bit unbalanced. At this point, a young man in an Army uniform politely asked if he could help me with the bag, and tossed it up there with no problem.

My arm is still really angry that I'd asked it to lift the bag. It spent the bulk of the six-hour flight pointing this out. I was reading a book and had to keep putting it down because it hurt to hold the book up. It also hurt to lift the bottle of water for a drink, to slip my coat back on, to shift my car into drive, and to set the emergency brake. I'm operating most things left-handed now, which is fairly amusing due to the general lack of dexterity on that side.

When I got home, I decided to apply ice, since, although the injury itself wasn't recent, the aggravation clearly was. Except I have no ice. And no bag of frozen peas to use, either. Inspecting the freezer, I discovered ice cream and ... well....

I just spent 20 minutes with a half bag of Hebrew National franks defrosting on my arm.