My tendonitis started bothering me late last week. For anyone not familiar with my experience with it, back in early 2003, I was out of work for several months because I had it very bad in both arms. I was experiencing shooting pains from the elbow down my forearm into the nerves between my middle and ring fingers on both hands. I couldn't type, I couldn't hold a pen, the vibrations from driving even hurt my hands. Luckily, a consultation with a hand surgeon and a nerve conduction test confirmed that it wasn't carpal tunnel, and so no surgery was required. I was able to make a full recovery through rest and physical and occupational therapy. Eventually I was able to return to work, but only on the condition that I be hypervigilant about taking frequent breaks and being careful not to spend too much time on the computer. Taking a year off and changing jobs went a long way to strengthen my arms and improve my attitude toward overworking my arms. It's been almost three years since I've had any serious symptoms, that is until now.
It turns out that the last few weeks of working the day job, at which I'm typically at a computer for 8-10 hours, then coming home at night and spending another 2-5 hours working at the breakneck pace NaNoWriMo requires has had a siginificant negative impact on my arms. I started feeling the twinges of nerve pain in my fingers mid-last week. With that in mind, I took a few days off over the Thanksgiving holiday, hoping my body would have enough rest to recover so that I could make the final push to finish my NaNoWriMo novel without further difficulty. Alas, that is not the case. I spent a couple of hours tonight writing another 3,000 words, bringing my total word count up over 26,000. But with these few hours of work has come the frightening and familiar series of sharp pains shooting ever stronger through both arms.
I will finish this novel, but I will not be finishing a draft of it this month. Perhaps if I were closer to the 50,000 word goal, I would push through, but given that I would have to write over 5,000 words a night for the rest of this week, I don't think my body could take the stress. It is far more important that I maintain my health so I can continue to work at my day job. So, all of that said, I'm officially calling it quits on my attempt at completing a draft of a novel in a month. I've learned a lot doing this, but those lessons are the subject for another entry at another time. Now is the time for a heavy dose of Advil and a good night's rest.
