Yesterday on Tuesday, when I did my morning stretches, I decided to do a yoga DVD for a change to just do something different for my workout. But today, Wednesday, I found that I was hurting a lot. My low back was really on the uproar, so I am thinking maybe it is too much for me. I couldn’t do anything at all. It was even a beautiful summer-warm day, and I was hurting too much to even go for a walk! I was disappointed, but I had to lay low for the whole day.

I did end up doing a couple loads of wash like towels and sheets, so I did get something done. I wanted to do more though, but my body was not up to anything. I was actually planning on going to the yoga class in the afternoon for cancer survivors since I hadn’t gone since I had surgery. Maybe I will try next week.

This coming weekend is a retreat I signed up for with cancer survivors. I will know at least two people there, but will meet others as well. It is held at the Inn at Morro Bay, so I don’t have to do any traveling at all. We just stay there and go to the work shops and eat the meals they fix. In the mornings they have a yoga class, but with my bout of low back pain with the DVD, I am a little gun shy in doing it. I will just not do the stretches that aggravate my low back. That was not fun.

I am supposed to wear a compression sleeve garment for my affected arm, but there is some goofy holdup in getting the doctor’s signature, or something. It seems like there is a communication problem on both sides, so I am not seeing either as doing their jobs correctly. In this whole journey, I have to be my own advocate for making sure things are followed through. It is indeed a job in itself having to make phone calls and making sure I talk to the right people and insurance and the whole wretched mess.

A friend of mine is letting me borrow her compression sleeve, but I didn’t even want to wear it yesterday since it was so hot. I am finding that I am sensitive to the elastic and it bothered me later in the day, so I took it off. The lymphedema therapist told me I need to wear it during waking hours for 30 days at least while I had the bit of swelling. It isn’t a very attractive looking piece of clothing, but I guess I better comply so I don’t have problems later on. Not a pretty site if the swelling gets bad. The idea is to wear it to prevent the debilitating swelling that could occur.