Hey folks, bit of a PSA for those who keep in touch through here and have been waiting on commissions. Hope you all in the USA like I am are hunkered down warm and safe and not trying to deal with the traffic in this crazy weather!

I have been working on the commissions with the two days allotted from not having to spend them running errands for myself and my pets thanks to the weather, but.. there's a bit of a worrying problem with my arm that keeps cropping up.

About three weeks ago I managed to badly pull a muscle in my right shoulder (I can't tell if it is a muscle or tendon/ligament) due to an incredibly stressful cause which I will not publicly discuss at this time (I would be grateful if no one asks what happened, it's not worth dredging up more stress about it). For the better part of two weeks I could not even turn my head to look across my shoulder or move my arm in any significant direction while having to go to work and serve customers, or pick up heavy items without major shuddering and loss of grip happening. Pair this with my old knee injury from 2009 acting up with the weather on the opposite side of my body, and you can imagine I've been a hobbling mess at work grateful only by the knowledge of being put back in the least busy part of the store where I love spending the idle hours writing notes on index cards. To better explain how bad it hurt, the first day I had taken 800mg if ibuprofen (which is max safe dosage) before work, and it didn't do a single bit of good against the pain.

Right now I have regained most of my range of motion, but fast gestures or jerking motions still cause a sharp line of pain from my neck down to the shoulder, but that's not the most worrying thing. In place of the constant burning soreness has come intermittent bouts of 'numbness' ranging from around my shoulder to completely down my arm to the wrist. I first noticed this phenomenon last night when I was penciling a commission piece and paused to jot down an image in my head of a creature that had appeared in my sleep the night before only to have my arm feel like it instantly fell asleep.

I am worried that it will escalate past the numbness to complete temporary loss of muscle control when I am working, so I am taking it as carefully as possible. I still don't know what I managed to pull or tear as the doctor I went to see on the second week did not allow me the time to talk to him about my muscle pain past the knee injury before he waived it off as wear-and-tear and shuffled me out the door with some vouchers for my preventative inhaler and a prescription for my rescue inhaler.

TL;DR - I am working on commissions today but with a damaged arm it will be in patchy stints at best, and loooots of ovaltine and tea - yum!