Mending and more mending

Wow! It's been a month since my last blog post! Where has the summer gone and what have we been doing? A couple of you have asked where we've gone to and I'm way over due to write something. Anything.

After my "trip" into the water on July 15 and floating a short distance doing a vigorous backstroke for my life, my arm froze up and forced me to visit a local doctor. I was OK for about 3 days and then Yammo! my arm did not want to be a part of any command my brain tried to send it. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt and after checking the Internet for a diagnosis, quickly got into a local doctor. (When we've needed to see a doctor while on the road it's always such a good experience! More on that later for those of you with trepidation about traveling and needing medical help.) I saw the doctor the next morning and she thought it was rotator cuff! Oh my! Not what I wanted to hear. Withing minutes I had x-rays that came back normal (yipeee!) and within the hour I was in physical therapy! Unbelievable medical service in such a small town! Love it and wish "they" could be my primary physician care all the time. Oh well, back to the physical therapist who worked her magic on my shoulder that wouldn't move. Pain scale of 1-10 and I kept thinking 20! What a pain it was! I went home to the motorhome and did my homework exercises and when I returned a couple days later I was doing a little better. I completed 2 weeks of physical therapy and I think I'm about 95% back to normal. Oh yeah = thank goodness it was my left shoulder so I could continue to cautiously cast my fly rod. I did my exercises on the river with our long handled fish net and reached and stretched and hopefully the tiny bit of lingering tenderness will go away.

When you cast a fly with a fly rod you want a natural drift so the fish see your presentation as a real bug floating downstream. When you throw your line out there on the river, with all the currents wanting to pull it here and there, you need to "mend" the line upriver so the fly doesn't start water skiing. So while I was mending my shoulder, I was also mending my fly line and catching fish during my healing. What a great way to re-cooperate.

Thanks to those of you who sent emails and messages asking about us during our silence. I'm hoping to get back into the routine of blogging in between fishing and enjoying life.