This was a week of ups and downs in terms of how I'm feeling and what sort of physical activity I've managed to do.
I spent Monday dealing with logs, trying to gather some material for my job at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair next weekend. No matter how careful I am, I always manage to tweak some muscles when I do such work, usually in my lower back.
I woke up Tuesday feeling really stiff and sore from Monday's work. But I got myself down to the river and paddled for an hour, and that seemed to loosen me up very nicely. I can say that in my four-plus decades of paddling there have been countless days in which I felt better after paddling than I'd felt before.
Meanwhile, I was trying my best to keep my left arm in the "neutral" position to keep the stress off my rotator cuff, and doing the strengthening exercises that Rob had shown me. By Thursday the area was feeling as good as it had felt in a long time, and that lifted my spirits. I had a good bike ride Thursday morning, and then saw my chiropractor that afternoon. I told her of the improvement in my left rotator cuff area, joking that I was almost afraid to say it out loud.
As it turned out, I was right to be afraid. I spent Friday doing more log-hunting, and while I can't think of any specific thing I did to aggravate any particular muscles, by yesterday morning my left arm was back to feeling as bad as ever. I went down to the river and got in the boat, and as I warmed up in the harbor, the pain nagged me with every stroke. Eventually I got warmed up enough for the discomfort to move into the background, but today the area continues to hurt.
Lately Sunday has been a bike-riding day for me, and that was the plan again today. But I was delayed by the latest of what has been a rash of flat tires in the last month. I got it fixed and did a good ride out to Shelby Farms and back by way of the Greater Memphis Greenline. As I carried the bike back into the garage to the spot where I hang it on the wall, I heard a sudden hissing noise: for some reason all the air was running out of the tire once more. Sigh... at least it waited until I was back home. I was too tired to deal with it right then, but I'll be fixing yet another flat tire before my next ride.
If I need a reminder of how small my problems are, then I guess I should look at the current catastrophic phenomena around the planet. The remnants of a Pacific typhoon walloped the west coast of Alaska, another typhoon is hitting Japan, Puerto Rico is bracing for Hurricane Fiona, a series of earthquakes has rocked Taiwan, and wildfires continue to burn in the western U.S. Oddly enough, it's as calm as can be around here. The sun is out, breezes are light, and we're in for several days of near-100-degrees-Fahrenheit temperatures.
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