Hands and shoulders, knees and toes

I realized after last nights blog that I haven’t been blogging lately. It’s not because there’s nothing to write about – but because my hands hurt.

Actually my hands, shoulders, knees and toes all ache. I have stiffness in my fingers and toes. I still wake up with “claw hands” in the morning. Takes me a while before I can use them properly.

My hands are weak. I can’t open jars, packages or carry anything heavy anymore. My feet are really creaky when I first wake up and when I go for my 3am pee I have to walk really carefully because they just don’t work properly until they get warmed up.

My shoulders and knees ache and if I do anything too athletic that puts pressure on my joints – I have a hard time the next day with aches and pains. Even sitting for a long time is difficult. For example – if I sit and watch a movie – depending on the day it can be uncomfortable to sit and I’m very stiff when I get up and start walking.

It’s probably some kind of arthritis that was flared up from either chemo or from the physical trauma I went through when I was taking Tamoxifen.

The only thing that makes me feel better is swimming. Getting in the pool makes all the aches and pains go away. That’s why I love aquafit and how I stay motivated to go every morning. Not only is it great exercise – but also gives me relief from pain.

I’ve also been taking Purica Recovery and it helps A LOT! It’s nice to find a vegan friendly product like this that works.  🙂

The pain isn’t so bad that I can’t function – it’s about a 4 on the pain-scale but sometimes it’s a 6. I have a meeting with a rheumatologist at the beginning of June and I hope she has some good information for me. I’m hoping that there is something I can do to make it go away forever. Or that this is a temporary symptom from all the treatment I did. It’s a LOT better then it was – but it’s still keeping me from doing what I want to do. 🙁

I taught the warm-up for Aquafit the other day and doing exercises on the side of the pool really hurt my knees and feet the next day. So much so that I told them I can’t do anything high-impact on the side of the pool – so I am now learning how to teach the GentleFit which is a slower more.

I can’t play my ukulele right now either. 🙁 I’m ok playing a few songs but I can’t practice for more then 15 minutes or my hands ache so badly the next day. It’s a total bummer.

And that’s the reason I haven’t been blogging. Sitting at the desk or typing for a long time is hard on my body. Ugh. I haven’t even told you about my trip to Hawaii or my trip to NY/Toronto. Maybe tomorrow.  😉