My Giant Purple Arm

My physiotherapist loves me, because I am putting her children through school. I think they're even nicknamed the college funds 'Katie's back', 'Katie's neck', 'Katie's shoulder'.

So, my arm. Well, my bad shoulder (the one I had reconstructive surgery on about 7 years ago) has been a bit grumpy ever since surfing at the end of August. I felt a little unhappy twitch in it as I was paddling my heart out atop a wave, next to my sweetheart, but didn't think much of it. It continued to bug me for a few weeks, and then I so stupidly spent the first week and a half of school being a fashion victim, and carrying my heavy text books on a bag slung over one shoulder. Yes, that shoulder. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Obviously, it got more grumpy, and I noticed that it really really didn't enjoy swimming much, so I was taking it easy, and trying to let it settle down on it's own. Then on Monday morning, I woke up with this fantastically huge, purple, swollen, throbbing arm. My nail beds were dark blue, my fingers purple and unable to make a fist, and the whole arm nearly double it's normal size. It didn't look that bad until you looked at the good arm, and then you realized. Fortuanatly, for once in my life, there was an available appt with my shoulder physio that morning.

So something is out of whack in there, and whatever it is is putting pressure on something which is impeding circulation. No duh. The arm is filling with blood, but not draining. The more work I do with it, the bigger, darker, and more painful it gets. It does have the neat effect of totally freaking people out - yesterday, in particular, it totally freaked out Kim Day, who has told me that she plans to start lurking on my blog, so shout out to Kim Day! Mainly I'm just afraid that this will mean another shoulder surgery. The last one was hugely unpleasant, and took ages to recover from, and I'd really like to avoid that gun slinger brace at all costs.

In other news, school is going well so far this term. I'm sitting in class feeling quite smug for having finished all of my homework days and days before it is actually due, and listening to the morons around me moaning about how stressed they are and how they haven't even started the work that is due tomorrow. 10 years ago, my first time at University, that was me. Now, not so much. Ah, to be older and wiser. Well, older.