I slipped on the ice on my way to church yesterday and skinned my right elbow.
At bedtime I noticed that my neck was sore, and it was still sore at naptime today. I think I strained it keeping my head from cracking on the pavement.
I landed flat on my back, cushioned by a shawl, and I appear not to have taken any other damage.
The abrasion had noticeably healed by bedtime. I haven't peeked under the bandage yet today.
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The chronic conditions appear to be holding steady as I begin the new year:
Peripheral neuropathy: "wrinkled socks" when I wear closed-toe shoes, sometime the end of the longest toe (the piggy that stayed home) on my right foot feels sensitive when it brushes against the top sheet.
Sciatica: pain in left leg at evening exercises. Sometimes I limp when I get up without exercising first, but it seldom bothers me when I get up in the night. When I stop and ask myself whether my leg hurts, I usually feel pain or at least "something is not quite right".
Rotator cuff: It hurts to do schoolgirl pushups, so I limit those to one negative whenever I get down onto the floor. I wave my arms around after morning exercises, and when I'm flat on my back for the evening exercises, at least once I move my arms as far as they will go, then finger-crawl a little farther. Almost never any discomfort when moving them back to my sides.
Eyes: Over a year after the operation, I realized that I don't need prescription glasses under my needle-threading glasses. I'm still not accustomed to being farsighted, and I still fret whenever I feel any pain or discomfort in the eyes.
Right Knee: for some time, my right knee has taken spells of feeling bruised, particularly when I do the next-to-the-last exercise (slowly moving my right leg to the left, then the left to the right), and particularly in the evening.
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I took the bandage off after supper. The ointment on the dressing appeared to have traces of blood in it. The whole wound fizzed when I poured peroxide over it, and I don't like the looks of the yellowish spots. I added another layer of Bacitraycin and left it exposed.
I plan to clean it and re-bandage at bedtime.
I had no idea how often I lean on my elbows!
I used Vitamin-E oil under the band-aid last night, and switched to naked A&D ointment this morning. I'll bandaid and E-oil again tonight.
I think the neck has healed.
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On the fourteenth of January, I rode five miles to Meijer, and decided to come home as fast as I could, in the hope of raising my cruising speed. After leaving the road where it was safe to sprint, I took a wrong turn that made the return trip six miles. As I was coming back through the village, my bad knee announced that I ought not to sprint, and the left knee said "Well, now that you mention it . . . "
Rather oddly, I didn't feel the slightest discomfort in either knee during the knee cross that night.
Could it be that my bad knee just isn't getting enough exercise?
I've got a slightly-tired sensation in both knees tonight, and I spent the whole day at home. I think I did go out to empty the garbage plate onto the compost heap.
I did make a significant improvement in my average speed: 7.8 mph, when it has been five. If I hurry for a few miles every time I go out, I might get back up to ten.
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I wore tights and knee socks yesterday, but didn't notice the neurodermatitis until this morning, and then only on the left leg. (But I could probably stir it up on the right leg if I scratched.)
I think the stiff neck is entirely gone, and the road rash is a small red patch of rough skin. Oddly, it itches near, but not on, the red spot. I've been wearing bandaids only under long sleeves, to keep A&D off my clothing. I put E-oil on it at night, and that doesn't stain the sheets.
I've stopped putting E-oil on my burn because I can't find it. I still put some on the knuckle I scraped on the fifteenth of December. I can see the red speck, but can't feel it. I suppose I should continue the E-oil for a few weeks after I can't see it any more -- I *can* find my knuckle!
I'm wearing my loose capri-length tights this morning because sweat pants brushing my shins aggravated my neurodermatitis yesterday evening, and I absent-mindedly scratched this morning. (A&D ointment seems to have it under control.) When I peeled my tights off after the ride, I thought that the itching wasn't going to be much, but it developed as the evening wore on.
I was on the bike about six hours yesterday. Well, in the tights; I walked a lot.
Urk! My little blisters are back. I just scratched an itch and discovered that there is a little blister at the base of my middle finger, on the index finger side. I put a speck of Cortizone 10 on it in the hope that that would stop it from developing.
I've been having pains in the right leg. My right knee was worryingly sore for a while.
I've also been having backache, sometimes AH! sudden. Seems to be centered on the right. I was considering asking for another round of steroids for a while, but it had improved on the morning I meant to call, and hasn't been crippling since. (The cat disagrees, as I was verrrry slow to put his food on the floor for a while.)
My road rash is still a pink spot on my elbow. The burn and cat bite on my left arm are also still visible, and so is the scraped knuckle if you know where to look.
I grated the end knuckle on my right pinkie a few days ago. It took ages to stop bleeding, but seems to be healing nicely. It appears to be in the middle of a small swelling, but there is a matching knot on the other pinkie. If all the depth of the pit is callus, it might not leave a scar.
A few weeks ago I discovered that I'd been clawing my left shin, but it seems mostly healed now. (And typing that made me need a coat of A&D on both shins.)
This morning I found another itchy little blister on my left hand, this time at the base of the forefinger. I put Cortizone 10 on it. A single application appears to have taken care of the first one.
This application will soon get washed off; I hope I remember to renew it at bed time.
Colonoscopy today.
The cancer-on-the-nose incident is pretty much over, but I have to keep covering my face. Thanks to Covid, I won't draw much attention by doing so.
My hip is starting to bother me at night. I must look up how long it's been since my last course of corticosteroids.
My hip has been bothering me less. I think it stiffened up during the limitations on exercise after getting the cancer off my nose. Those limitations were lifted on the seventeenth of June.
I can still tell where I scraped the knuckle on my pinkie, but I have to put on my magnifying glasses and compare it to the left knuckle to be sure it isn't normal.
I'm still putting E-oil on the spot where I had a burn blister on my thigh a few weeks ago, but it's getting hard to find. I'm also oiling a burn on my right knuckle, which has gone flat and firmly stuck, and may merge back into the skin as the thigh burn did. I'm using spf 45 lipstick on it, but making no effort to cover it; my hands have a lot of brown spots, one more won't matter.
The donor site on my chin has faded to pink, but is still sensitive. The graft on my nose now fits comfortably under a 3/4" band-aid. There's a red speck where the scar extends a hairbreadth below the graft.
It feels numb when I wiggle my nose, but now starts feeling more normal after I wiggle for a while. Sometimes hurts if I bumb noses while kissing, but isn't sore when I poke it.
I can still tell where the road rash on my elbow was, but I'm apt to forget it when I put my e-oil on.
I haven't heard from the right knee lately. Or maybe I've ignored it.
I hardly ever notice my neurodermatitis -- perhaps because I've not been dressing up for church in knee hose, and I was barred from cycling until tights were no longer required.
Re 9 April et sec.: the little blisters didn't develop.
Just checked: the burn on my left arm is still visible; I should remember it at E-oil time. I made no effort to protect it from the sun; the mark may be semi-permanent. I think that e-oil has helped the sunburn scars on the backs of my hands, that were stenciled through my cycling gloves for many years. Nowadays, I put on more sunscreen every time I take my gloves off, and sometimes peel them back just to apply more sunscreen. And now I can start training to take rides that are long enough to require that!
I say "semi-permanent" because the burn scar above my knee where I brushed against the stovetop while standing on a chair is no longer around. But I was an adult for a long time before it faded.
Just as I was thinking that I'd managed to pull Dave out of bed without straining my pectoralis major, his face smacked into the bruise and made it sorer.
Crash detailed in yesterday's entry in my training diary on PAGEJOY.
The swellling of my knuckle (left hand, ring finger) hasn't gone down any, but I don't think it's as sore. It now has a ring of red bruise just distal to my ring. I pulled the ring out of a groove there. Taking the ring off would require a jeweler.
All my old injuries are pretty much unchanged. I think the red spot on my chin is smaller.