Four years ago, my left arm was cut during a robbery, leaving me with nerve damage and considerable pain.

Then, after I worked to live with that, I developed pretty severe arthritis in several fingers on my left hand...fingers required by guitar players and keyboard players using a lot of left-hand walking bass.

It took about 6 months to sort of learn to live with that.

A week ago Saturday, I noticed some tightness in my left elbow.

When I looked at it, I thought I was looking at Popeye the sailor-man. The elbow was swollen to twice it's normal size.

The diagnosis is bursitis, with the over-all diagnosis that I have just worn my left arm out.

It's been drained and has come back. While not extremely painful, it will probably always be an issue..something I will have to work around.

I'm worried about running out of options. I thought that if all else failed for the nerve damage and arthritis, I could still hold block chords with my injured left hand and make up the difference with my right hand, which is still in good shape. I'm prepared to get out of playing guitar soon.

DAMN!

There is a possibility that I just injured it, and the problem will go away or be something easily tolerated.

We'll have to see...


Russ