I have a secret

Dear Readers,

I have a secret. A nasty little secret.

I suffer from chronic tendinitis. Mostly in my right wrist.

Tendinitis is inflammation or irritation of a tendon — any one of the thick fibrous cords that attach muscles to bones. The condition causes pain and tenderness just outside a joint. While tendinitis can occur in any of your body's tendons, it's most common around your shoulders, elbows, wrists and heels.

I think I gave it to myself back in animation school. Being on a computer 10 hours a day trying to finish your 3D senior thesis film isn't the greatest thing for your wrists. Spending the rest of your day drawing, tracing, inking, and typing papers certainly doesn't help. When your wrists start to hurt and you work through the pain to finish assignments... well, you get where I'm going here.

In any case ever since art school I've had bad flare ups. They mostly involve massive pain in one wrist or the other, the need to wear a wrist brace, and copious amounts of anti-inflammatory herbs. There have been fewer and fewer periods of pain lately because I try to take good care of my wrists, but every once in a while I have a major flare up. During these times I'll even resort to ibuprofen which anyone who knows me will know that that I don't take pharmaceuticals unless I am in major major pain.

So to give you an idea I have taken four Motrin this morning on top of my herbal regimen. It hurts, my friends. In fact I've just typed this whole post to you with one hand while the other one is being iced with an ice donation from the lovely cafe next door. I won't be finishing my sister's handmade sweater for this Christmas and it's killing me. I hate to resort to a store bought gift for my sister when her sweater is literally two hours away from being finished. It's really killing me and I feel like a horrible sibling for not finishing it sooner.

So my secrets out, Dear Readers. When I stop sewing for weeks at a time you now know why. I'm probably nursing a hurting wrist and my hurting pride.

Do you suffer from similar ailments, Readers? Do any of you bloggers suffer from tendinitis or another blog interrupting ailment?  What do you do when you can't sew?