Playing Hurt

     Time crunch again. It is now 3:30 pm, and I'm going to attempt to get this done before I have to go take care of other obligations before practice. I know once I mentioned perhaps timing how long this takes, and this is that time. I kind of glanced at the clock last time, and I'm pretty sure it's about an hour. That'll barely give me enough time, but it should work. Plus, I know I'll be too busy tomorrow, and I already feel messed up for missing last week. Although I will say, I do have a good reason. Well, I guess it's not a “good” reason, but it's a reason none the less. I usually wouldn't choose to talk about personal problems here. Actually, now that I wrote that, it's seems as all I might do is talk about my problems. Well, not health problems anyway. But this is kind of a doozy. I couldn't use my hand last week. I'm grateful to be typing right now. For some reason, last week, when I woke up on Wednesday, I couldn't move my right hand. It was swollen up the size of a tomato, and extremely painful. I had not done anything that I know of. It just hurt. Bad. What's worse is, I'm right handed, so it made everything, and I mean everything, more difficult. Wednesday night, I was not even able to sleep. Every time I moved it would send such shooting pain that I would wake up. I spent all of Thursday trying to get comfortable, get some relief, and get some sleep. It sucked because on Wednesday, I kind of thought that I was fucked for the week, but I was holding out for some kind of miracle that maybe I just slept on it wrong, and that perhaps on Thursday I would be back to some sense of normalcy.

     As I guess I already mentioned, that did not happen. Thursday was worse. The sucky part was that I was supposed to have band practice Thursday night. We rent a rehearsal space by the hour. If you don't cancel the space 24 hours ahead of time, you have to pay anyway. So, instead of cancelling Wednesday, I held out for a miracle that did not happen. Hence Thursday, I'm stuck paying 45 bucks for a room that didn't even get used. I hate that part. I really don't like not being able to play. But I hate paying for nothing. My bandmates were understanding enough, but it didn't cost them anything. Oh well, this is not about the cost. This is more about the fact that we missed a chance to practice. Usually it might be no big deal, but we have a gig on Saturday! The drummer was sick, then I was injured, so we haven't played in weeks, and we have a gig on Saturday! That makes tonight a pretty big deal, and I'm not even at 100% yet. I'm not too concerned, I'm sure we'll do fine, but it is on my mind. I also find myself wondering how concerned they are about me. Being willing to, and being able to, are not always the same thing. What's more, my punk band had a gig last week! I told them I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I would try. Especially since the punk band had already cancelled a gig the week prior, I didn't want us to cancel 2 gigs in a row. I told them I might be ready, even though it hurt. So we got together Saturday afternoon to see if I could handle it. I could. It hurt like mad, but I did it. Then I even played the gig last Saturday night! So I would hope at this point no one would really ever question my desire.

     But it's not always about desire. Sometimes it's about ability. I was able, we actual played well! I saw the videos, we were rockin'! I don't think anyone would have known that I was about to cry. Now, at this event on Saturday both of my bands are playing. Back to back! It should be a crazy show. All of our friends will be there, a lot of which we haven't seen in a while. It should be epic! But the thing that has got me thinking over the past week is, what if this thing comes back? Sure, I was able to pull it together last week, and good lord willing, I'm going to pull it together this week too. But, I don't want to have to pull it together. I was thinking about it, and I think I've only had about 4 pain free days this year. It's the end of March! Something is going on. I feel really fortunate that I had a friend share some of his remedies with me, and I truly am thankful for that. I don't know that I'd be here doing this without his help. But, the fact that he could help kind of lends itself towards the idea that we know what it is. Which is scary. Maybe not as scary as not knowing, but still, pretty scary. I use my right hand for everything. To think that the potential exists for some kind of malady to take my right hand out of commission is terrifying! I've got to kind of re-think my whole life right now. My diet probably has to change. My exercise routine has to get stepped up. I don't want to live my life in fear, or on medication. I feel like such a dipshit for letting it get this far, that I need to contemplate the loss of the use of my hand to do something about it. It is now 4:18 pm. (But I hurried)