#28: Frustrated
The look of frustration — into my phone after a climb today.
Last night I got out of the car after driving for 13 hours, and I felt a sharp, shooting nerve pain in my left arm, shoulder, and under my armpit. I didn’t think too much of it, but then I felt it again sitting by the fire. And it persisted through the night and this morning.
My neck had been hurting the last few hours of the drive, and I’d been fiddling a lot with my phone — the screen stopped working. It’s 5 years old. I probably need a new one. Also, the seat in my Ford CMAX isn’t exactly the most comfortable long-haul ride in the world. But then, no car seat feels comfortable after you’ve been driving for 13 hours straight.
Oh and for the record, this is other side from the shoulder injury I sustained climbing a few weeks ago.
Today I been feeling the same shooting pain that often seems to come out of the blue. It happened once when I breathed in. That’s it. I just breathed. Another time when I sat upright, or stood upright, I guess a little too fast. Meanwhile, hanging on my pull-up bar actually felt kind of nice. Must’ve been the stretching. So I decided to go out, touch some rock, and see how it felt.
As it turns out, not too good. I one-hung Flesh for Lulu again, and it wasn’t the climbing that hurt. The moves felt fine, easier even. But I had the nerve pain the whole way up, and near the top I was again pumped and hung on a draw rather than push it toward a big fall.
According to Dr. Google, this could be caused by a pulled muscle somewhere in the area that is pinching a nerve. But of course, “nerve pain under left arm” returns possible diagnoses of everything from heart attack to cancer, so… there’s that.
But this is certainly related to my drive yesterday. Sitting in a chair in the same position for 13 hours is simply unnatural, just like sitting at a desk at a keyboard all day is unnatural. So I’m going with a strained muscle pinching a nerve.
So, I will rest. Tomorrow is supposed to pour all day. That brings us to Sunday, the 30th. I promise I’m not intentionally creating drama by making it go down to the wire.
Honestly, the bigger issue is I’m fuckin’ frustrated. Is this age? Growing old, just doing its thing? Whatever, that’s why I have a tattoo that says “Do not go gentle,” because Dylan Thomas was right:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should rave and burn at break of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.