Day two of chronically aching hands.  The pressure can’t continue to fall, can it?  Otherwise, the weather is lovely.  Finally autumnal.  I want, very badly, to put up my Halloween decorations.  I’ve been craving chocolate-covered marshmallow pumpkins, even the not orange flavored ones.  It’s too early to decorate though.  I’m already under the impression that it’s October.  For some reason when I was at Target last Thursday, I felt the dire need to buy Andy’s birthday card even though it’s over a month away.  But I really shouldn’t give in to the wish for October.  All things in their own time.

The pain is fatiguing physically and distracting mentally.

I think there are workarounds in life, more than solutions.  A solution implies that there is something that needs to be done to fix a problem.  Once you do that, you’re done.  Workaround, to me, implies continuing work.  Genetically, I have a problem with weight and metabolism.  I’ve found an effective workaround that involves a continuous monitoring of calories in and calories out.  The workaround for my joint pain is still in development.  Movement seems to help.  I had problems with my back on Saturday, but a substantial run before each game helped a lot.  I hypothesized that card manipulation might help with my hands, but I haven’t followed through with that.  I also haven’t been persistent with any sort of anti-inflamation medication.  The thing that flummoxes the process is that my arthritis isn’t continuous.  On some days, there’s no problem at all, I feel fine.  Others, like today, I hurt like hell.  It’s not conducive to a continuing regiment.

For the record, today I’ve taken two ibuprofen, and done little else.  I’m going to shuffle some cards, see if that helps, and take a nice long job before disc tonight.  Probably take a couple more ibu before the game too.