I started feeling a little under the weather yesterday as I was inking, so I gave up early and came home at around 4:00pm.

By bedtime I was wiped out.

I spent most of today in bed. It’s kind of a blur, but I think that the total amount of time I’ve spent NOT in bed is less than three hours.

Okay, fine. I’ve got two conventions to do in the next two weeks, and very little on the docket that absolutely MUST be done before the weekend, so I’m prioritizing “get better” at the top of the list. Of course, right now I’m so sick of having been in bed all day that I had to get out and do something. Maybe after I finish this whiney blog post I’ll color something.

At least my wrist isn’t bothering me.

“I figured out you were home because I had email from you.”

I guess I must have snuck in…

Well, I took the requisite break, and didn’t do any drawing on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I took it easy on Monday.

As far as I can tell, I’ve got two issues — tendonitis in the elbow, and mild carpal tunnel in the wrist. Pencilling doesn’t seem to exacerbate either of them. Painting minis (which I am still on enforced sabbatical from) makes the elbow kind of creaky, mostly because I’m holding the paintbrush and the miniature up close to my face. Inking makes my hand ache a little bit over time (4+ hours of inking), but it has ALWAYS done that, and it’s an issue of gripping too tightly. I’ve actually gotten much better on that front over the years.

The real concern is that using the mouse seems to exacerbate the carpal tunnel. I have a fairly ergonomic setup, but spending any appreciable amount of time pointing and clicking without returning my hands to the keyboard results in a dull ache right in that wrist channel.

The good news is that I’m on much lower dosages of anti-inflammatories than I was a week ago, and the pain is much less noticable than it was.

So… no doctor for me yet. The regimen of rest, ice, and anti-inflammatories seems to be working — I just need more of it. I will be limiting my inking to 3 rows per day three days per week, and I will be taking care to keep the drugs and the ice coming while I’m working. I’m not sure what to do about the mouse issue yet, but two options present themselves: 1) mouse left-handed, and 2) teach my 12-year-old how to do the flood-filling. Oh, and “spend less time surfing the web.”

I’m not posting this to ask for advice, nor to elicit sympathy posts. I’m just posting the promised update. If you feel the urge to nag me about going to see a doctor, please restrain yourself from actually posting your nag. I mean it. I get really, really tired of that.

mamaslyth posted one of those meme-thingies, and I thought “cool. A haiku generator.” So I clicked, entered my username, and this is what it spat out.

going to be more
religious about taking
the ibuprofen

Obviously it is not random. That does not make this haiku any less cool.

(My arm feels pretty good today.)