I've decided that I'm going to have to give up playing for 6 months. This is currently dragging on and I'm not able to plan any sort of a future whilst this is happening. Everybody keeps suggesting that I go into teaching the guitar. It's just not that easy. At the moment I really am not enjoying playing. Even the simplest things can be painful. I really just want to leave the guitar until I feel like I have a bit of control over this condition. Am I leaving it for good? I don't know. It depends what the next few months bring. If I can't be as good as I was, and improve beyond that then I don't really see much point picking the guitar up again. I won't enjoy it.
There has been new developments in my psoriatic arthritis. My index finger is new generally inflamed, causing pain when playing some simple chords. Not excruciating but certainly distracting. The furthest out joint on my middle finger (DIP joint) is also now swollen. This is as far as I know new. Bizarrely though, this isn't actually causing me pain when playing but is causing spontaneous aches and pains and is slightly stiff. My whole body, however, just doesn't seem to be reacting to the anti-inflammatories like it used to. My shoulders are now generally sore. I think swimming is still a no go, although I haven't tried it recently as I've been working pretty constantly since I had to abandon my last attempt.
I've now got confirmation of receipt of my referral from Guy's. Unfortunately, this means that I'm still potentially a long way off an appointment. There is no date or even mention of when the appointment may be. I'm hoping for mid-March but I fear that it may be as late as mid-May.
So all in all, until I can control my symptoms and be confident that I will wake up the next morning able to play as well as the previous day, I've decided to hang up the guitar. I've got work that I'll have to struggle through until the end of next week and then I'm done.
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