It's INKtober time!

This will be my first year participating in the INKtober challenge and I'm quite excited about it. Anyone who knows me will already know that I love to sketch directly in ink/pen but can I pull it off daily for 31 days?  Wish me luck. 

Yesterday's effort

This old paperbark tree resides in one of the streets not far from where I live.  I admire it every time I drive by it.  I think it's because of the way the branches bend downwards. I sketched this beauty with a Carbon Platinum fountain pen from a photo I took.   Unfortunately, it's not in a safe spot on the road -side to just pull over and sketch from the car. 

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I'm posting the sketch a little late because I had a bit of a setback with my left hand and left foot yesterday (Oct 1st). You may remember I had carpal tunnel surgery four months ago and my left hand still wasn't fully healed.  I was unable to bear any heavy weight on it such as using my hand to help myself up from the floor or use it for any heavy duty tasks.   Well, yesterday afternoon, I was at the local shopping mall to pick up a prescription for my son when, my left leg slipped in a puddle of water sitting right outside the pharmacy.  Down I went and my reflexive action was to put out my left hand to break my fall.  I have an old back injury from years ago so my first instinct is to always protect the back.

My hand took the brunt of the impact with the floor and it began hurting a lot with a weird sensation through all my fingers!  Needless to say, I alerted the pharmacy about the puddle of water so they could get  it cleaned it up before some other unsuspecting person went for a slip-slide.  They also took down the details of my fall and told me to go and note the incident with Centre Management also.  At Centre Management, the security guard took down all my details, applied an ice pack, and sent me on my merry way.  They were all quite concerned and full of apologies.

By early evening, I was also in agony with my left foot which had seemed okay after the fall.  The pain was so bad that I nearly passed out and I ended up being taken by ambulance to Hospital Emergency.  They took an X-ray of my foot which was thankfully clear so they deemed it to be a sprain from the fall.  As far as my hand went, the doctor didn't feel the need to X-ray it because I could still move all my fingers and close a fist, albeit gently.  He feels the nerve, now unprotected due to the carpal tunnel surgery, was injured and my hand will take some time to heal.  Nerve damage can take years to heal. I know that from my back injury.  Obviously, if the hand gets any worse, they will X-ray it just to be on the safe side.  So there you have it.  My drama for yesterday.  I feel so lucky that nothing was broken but I will be nursing my left foot and hand for a little while yet.

Thankfully, it wasn't my right hand either so I can still sketch and participate in INKtober.  YAY!
I will be posting again later today to keep me up on track with the challenge.