North Dakota - status update

My post for Day 6 will be about my visits to the state museum and the state capitol.  It's going to take some time, though, because I took a whole raft of photos that I still need to edit.

Since then, I've been traveling around southeastern ND and have been in Fargo the last few days, and it's likely I'll get those posts finished before the Day 6 post, just because I have fewer photos for those days.

What's holding me up is that on the 8th, Dexter chased a chipmunk with extreme enthusiasm, ignoring the fact that I was attached to the end of his leash which I was holding with just my left hand.  I got pulled over and dragged on the ground (fortunately grass, this time) and knocked over a sign.  The result was a bleeding little finger, a really bleeding gash on my forearm, and an invisible but very painful injury to my upper arm and shoulder.  Again fortunately, they're all on my left side, so life hasn't been totally impossible, but it's been much harder than before.

For 2 days I had to keep my left arm clamped to my body, because it didn't have enough strength to support itself, let alone anything else.  When I began to be able to move it, I found I could move it back but not forward, presumably because it was those forward-moving muscles that got over-stretched when Dext pulled me down.  Very gradually, I've been able to do more, thank goodness.

But using a computer is one of the things I just didn't have the strength to do - not at all in the first few days, and later only with my arm being supported, which it is now - on top of a stack of pillows.  I find one-handed typing very frustrating.  And even tasks, like photo editing, that I can do with a mouse, I still need my other hand occasionally to do some things - and I find I've had to lift my left arm with my right hand to get it in position to do things.

And then it gets tired very easily, and the pain is never very far away.  I've taken Tylenol occasionally - I can't take any version of NSAIDs and I'm allergic to all forms of codeine, so I'm limited on pain killers.  And the pain makes it hard to sleep, another complication.

Taking it all together, life has just been harder recently.  But it's been nothing like as incapacitating as when I had that stomach flu, so I'm counting myself lucky there.  And it's gradually getting better.  Still that's my excuse for why I haven't been posting anything recently.  I'll do my best to catch up as fast as I'm able.

Idiot dog.  And apparently chipmunks are common in North Dakota.