another uncontrolled experiment

[adrian_turtle]

My Saturday afternoon was catastrophically bad for my hands. What about Saturday afternoon? Dunno. I hate latent reactions. The unusual things I did were chopping half a cabbage, changing the light in the hall, and an experimental 5 minutes with a rowing machine at the gym. (Sometimes I get so frustrated with not being able to do any upper body exercise without setting off pain flares. After going to all the trouble of getting to the gym in the snow, I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something. Hah. The erg looked like a possibility because I didn't need to grip with my whole hands, I could just curl my fingers around the bar.) I was trying to keep my thumbs relaxed and not involved. I don't know if my best efforts weren't good enough, or if something else caused this flare. All that fiddling with the uncooperative light fixture? Cold damp weather? Combined effects?

It might not have been the erg, but I still don't think I'm going to risk it again. This flare is really bad. I can type, if I'm careful about the spacebar. But the motion of my thumb in rolling up my sleeve this morning -- yikes! I hate it that such trivial, ordinary things as trying to open a door or turn the pages of an old worn paperback can defeat me.