My arm ached all day and finally in the early afternoon, I called Cherri to see if she knew what the problem was. I described the pain--intense local pain in my shoulder, almost at my armpit, when touched that radiated down into my elbow and further into the palm of my right hand. I was about to go to the doctor because it hurt so bad. She diagnosed me over the phone by asking me to do certain moves and said I had damaged my external rotator cuff muscles, probably through overuse, and had possibly sprained the rotator tendons. She said to take anti-inflammatories (four ibuprofen every 4-6 hours) and do friction massage on the affected muscles. After describing how to do it, she said I would be surprised at how much it would help. I got Ed to do the massage and it hurt so bad! But the moment he was done, the pain was gone. Totally. I couldn't believe it. I had to do more massage later but every time I it starts to hurt, I do about a minute of friction massage and the pain goes away. Man--it really pays to have a physical therapist in the family!

Amy and Chad stopped by with her blue, white and silver Christmas ornaments and I decorated my tree this evening. I didn't think I'd be able to because of my achy arm but that massage did the trick. The only problem was my other arm started hurting because I'd gotten a flu shot in it earlier. Man--that shot hurt! Not at the time of the injection but later. Oof!

But now my tree is beautifully decorated with blue and silver and silvery-white balls and all my keepsake ornaments and silver ribbon and white lights. ::sigh:: It's incredible. I love looking at it in a dimmed room. It just sparkles and glows. I so hate putting the lights on but once they're on, I love the rest of it. Usually I have a burgundy and gold tree with a musical theme. It is a gorgeous tree but I've had the same tree for 4 years so when Amy offered up her blue/white/silver ornaments, I jumped on it. I'm glad I did--it was a great idea.

It is now almost 3am, however, so I need to get to bed. I'm leaving tomorrow for the beach so I won't be writing again until Sunday. Don't have too much fun without me!

--L