Having a pinched nerve in my neck is the weirdest sensation. If I tilt my head back slightly, my right hand fills with pins and needles. The moment I bend my head forward, it disappears…mostly. I have the faintest sensation of needles in my knuckles even afterwards. If I don’t tilt my head forward, the pins and needles intensify until my elbow and even the front of my shoulder are tingling.
When I googled “pinched nerve”, one medical website says they will often go away by themselves, normally after 4-6 weeks, but it’s already been at least that. Another medical site says that if left untreated, it may lead to permanent nerve damage, so I guess I should be glad that it’s not pinching all the time. I also guess that I should be calling to make an appointment about this and not just hoping it will go away on its own. All the listed treatments are things I’m already doing, apart from seeing a chiropractor. Mostly it seems massage and muscle relaxants, and correcting your posture, are the best ways to handle it.
Karin was here earlier to get her car (Anders was fixing things on it), and then she was going to the beach. The neighbors are setting up their giant pool in their backyard. It’s huge, and circular, and about 5 feet deep, and it completely kills the grass under it each year. Karin asked me if I wanted to go to the beach, but I told her that’s the place I would least like to be. She laughed; she knew that already. There’s no shade at the beach, and it’s too hot for me.
Our thermometer says it’s 30C outside, and 27C inside*, which is about my limit. At least there is a breeze today, which makes it bearable, as it means there is air moving in the house, too. I will have to pull all the blinds down shortly, and shut the porch door, or it will get hotter in the house, and make it hard for sleeping later. The sun at the back is right at the edge of the wall. It’s been a lovely long summer weekend, and I don’t really want to go back to work tomorrow. By around 5 pm it should have cooled down enough for me to go for a walk. Yesterday’s walk was breezy but it was really muggy out. The route I usually take has equal parts sun and shade which is perfect. Maybe I’ll go longer today and come back up the snail trail to cool down.
A little while ago, while I was in the living room finishing my book, I looked up, and a wood pigeon was sitting IN the birdbath, dipping his head and breast and ruffling his feathers. That’s the first time I’ve actually seen a bird using it as a bath, though we see birds drinking from it all the time. It’s so shallow that it dries up quite quickly in the sun, so I try to remember to go out and fill it every so often. Anders weeded the vegetable garden, and is going to put net over the snap peas so we can keep that wood pigeon away from them. Sorry pidgie, those are MINE.
I haven’t done much today, apart from getting up, showered, and dressed. I finished off some of the midsummer leftovers for lunch, put out the deck cushions, watered the indoor plants, emptied the garbage cans, and finished my book. Now I’m writing a blog post. Accomplishments! Karin is coming back for dinner and we have some good HelloFresh choices, so I hope Anders will make one of them.
I downloaded a bunch of Kindle book samples from my booklist the other day, and I have 2 other “real” books to decide between to start next. The only issue with reading real books during the summer is that I can’t have the window open at night in the bedroom with the reading lamp on or I get tons of bugs in the room. I read this last book so fast they didn’t have time to find me, haha!
Update: I found the baby magpie dead behind the garage. Doesn’t look like a cat got him, I expect his parents couldn’t find him to bring him food. 🙁
*around 85F