Less pain

Yesterday I did as I planned. I went to a nearby shopping center and walked the perimeter, stopping to drop toys in collection bins and again stopping for tea at Starbucks. My hip hurt but the movement lessened the pain. Later I went downtown and walked some there as well. I was no speed demon and I didn't stray far from my car but I think I got in at least a half-hour of walking.

Last night I felt less pain in that leg, and again this morning. It's far from gone but it's less.

I do believe that the real connection between the resurgence of this pain and my daily activities is that for the last couple of weeks I have again slipped from the program. I haven't been doing the arthritis exercises three days a week and I have skipped the regular half-hour exercise several times, too. The bitch of it is, of course, that when I am in extreme pain exercise is simply impossible. Then I long for some kind of powerful painkiller, in spite of my reservations about those. In this instance I turned to tylenol arthritis a few times. I don't know if it helped. It may have, at night. I suspect, in any case, that such extreme pain can be kept at bay if I stay with the program.

And you may well wonder why you need to read any of this. Of course you don't need to read it. I write it, though, to remind myself of such connections to see if there are patterns, and for those who do read this journal on occasion I write it to let you know just how it is for me. Rather than write the one-page success story that leaves out the bad times I prefer to keep them in. I think they illustrate life as a real person with real failings and real arthritis who somehow stays on the long haul, keeps trying to make it better for herself.