Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
Daily Diary, Day 1292:
I had a good night sleep last night, a full 8 hours. I stopped wearing my splint at night a couple of nights ago, to give my hand a rest and generally that is working out fine. Decades ago, when I developed a quite painful case of carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist, I wore a brace on my hand every night. That lasted for at least 10 years.
I also wore the brace during the day when I was typing, so I guess I shouldn’t be that impatient with wearing a splint for a short time. Without the brace, I was in constant pain, but this was finally taken care of when I started going to acupuncture routinely. I started going to an acupuncturist for sciatica, which she took care of, but one of the unintended effects was taking care of the chronic pain in my wrist, so I no longer had to wear a brace every night. In fact, an arthritis glove for when I’m typing seems to work just fine.
Since Covid, I haven’t been feeling comfortable going back to the acupuncturist, although I take a variety of herbs that she has recommended that have helped my arthritis in general, and I upped the doses of these this past week, which I think is also helping calm down the general flare up.
In any event, during those years when I had carpal tunnel pain, I trained myself at night to be very careful about placement of my hands so that I didn’t bend them at the wrist. That training seems to be still working well, ensuring that I am also not putting any strain on my index finger.
I did spend most of the day yesterday working on getting the draft for my monthly newsletter done, using dictation and then editing, making sure I took a lot of breaks in between. It seems to have worked well, and although it left my hand a little achy, it wasn’t painful. Same thing with this morning when I did an hour of cleaning the upstairs.
You might say I am feeling guardedly optimistic that the injury is slowly healing. The important thing is for me to remember is to be patient and not overuse it, so as not re-injure it again.
I can’t see any major change in the way my eye looks, but I am hoping that the redness is not because of any continued infection, but just the fact that the bruising of that delicate skin will take a while to disappear. However, I am going on Monday for a regular check up with my primary care physician and will have her look at both the hand and the eye to give her assessment of how the healing is going.
After I post this, I have a short phone call scheduled and then a phone date with an old friend scheduled which should take me up until a little before lunchtime. Depending upon how much time I have, I will either do Pilates or take a short walk. In the afternoon after lunch, a lot will depend upon how my hand feels in terms of whether I will do any of the other work like data analysis of my sales that I have on my list, or just spend the afternoon reading and continuing to let everything heal.
Leaving you with some lovely blossoms, anybody able to tell me what fruit tree this is from?
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My guess is that the fruit may be a cherry of sorts. The flower below is French lavender. Gently caress the stalk and draw your hand up the leaves. The oil will transfer to your hand . It might be a pleasant, calming additon to any walk. All the best for your continued recovery!
I think the blossoms are apple. Up here in western Oregon, neither the cherries nor the apples are blossoming yet, but I recall the wild cherries we have are white, while the apple are pink. Beautiful either way!