Busy days ahead

On Wednesday I'm leaving for Dallas to teach a collage workshop at the Artist's Showplace in Addison, Texas. I've been told this is a dynamite group of artists and it should be great fun. Last week I shipped two boxes of books from the publisher and two cartons of art materials from my studio, including having handouts printed. That's always the hardest part of getting ready for a workshop. I've decided to leave my laptop at home, so I won't be writing the blog, unless I can access it from the hotel computer. I have a lot of work to do on my new book that I can do on legal pads--the old-fashioned way.

I've been having a hard time with pain in my hip and difficulty walking. I was starting to walk like a sailor on a rolling ship. This has been going on since before Christmas, but I've toughed it out, hoping it would go away--and fearing the worst, maybe surgery in my future. I finally saw the doctor three weeks ago and the x-ray showed normal wear in the hip joint. He put me on physical therapy, which greatly improved my strength and balance, but didn't do anything for the pain. I can't take NSAIDs or aspirin because I'm one of those in the fine print who gets bleeding ulcers from such medications. However, he finally gave me a joint injection of cortisone on Thursday and I feel like I have my life back. It's amazing how dispiriting it is to endure such pain. Everyone has experienced this at one time or another, I know. I'm accustomed to a certain level of arthritis pain, which I've had for more than thirty years, but this was something else. Anyway, I'm back on track and feeling like myself again. My only reason for writing this is to share some advice: Don't let fear of the diagnosis keep you from getting treatment at once when you need it. I lost weeks of productive time by being a scaredy-cat and my fears were unfounded.