I’ve been not enjoying a few days off from work after my doctor banned me from using a computer. I suppose, when you show up in a physician’s office with fingers going numb and terrible pain in your hand, and you spend most of your day on a computer, it makes sense.

Normally, I like the idea of a few days off. I’d love to tell all my far-flung family and friends the news, but no computer means no e-mail, no Facebook, no MySpace. I can’t even text them from my cell phone because that requires the same repetitive motion.

I could have used a little time practicing the piano, since I’m the organist for my Eastern Star chapter this year, but I suspect that also falls under “repetitive motion” too.

Deciding dialing a few digits on the phone surely wouldn’t hurt me, I called my mother, looking for sympathy. She clucked and sounded worried – and reminded me that she’d had the same kind of pain before she had a thumb knuckle replaced.

Thanks, Mom, real reassuring.

She did offer some advice: Her big flare-up came after a big bout of cleaning and sorting throughout the house. Stay away from housework until you feel better, she warned.

Yeah, like that was going to be a problem. When clutching a broom makes you go “Ow!” avoidance isn’t much of a problem.

I realized, however, that actual pain can make your children feel sorry for you in a way that pleading the need for help never can. My daughter drove me to the eye doctor’s, and picked me up after my eyes were dilated and the whole world became a dimension of pure light. She took me to the store and actually carried my groceries into the house.

My poor heart. I didn’t think it could handle the shock.

The sympathy continued. My son took me to eat Chinese, my daughter made me enough of my favorite potato soup to last several meals and I coaxed a grandgirl into going to the laundromat with me by promising her we’d go for frozen Cokes afterwards.

If you see a trend there, it’s because the doctor gave me steroids to make me feel all better, and the side effect is that I want to eat. Non-stop.

I got a jump on things by buying salad mix and a roasted chicken at the store, and stocking up on those light yogurts that taste like dessert. Normally, I’d cook, but under the circumstances …

To keep my mind off food, I decided to enhance my knowledge. I learned from the Oprah show that the woman who wrote the wildly successful “Twilight” books that are even more successful movies dreamed a key scene, wrote the last half first and then the first half, and she’d never written before.

Which made me think about my own series of vampire romances coming out next year, which I need to get on the computer and edit …

I learned from Dr. Oz that you need 26 grams of protein a day to feel satiated. He showed a yummy egg white dish full of vegetables, all of which need to be chopped, and there’s that repetitive motion again …

That’s not all I learned during my time off. I discovered I’m not smarter than a fifth grader and I’m not ready for the Jeopardy stage yet. I did, however, learn that I’m much brighter than the woman on daytime “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” didn’t even make it through the first question.

AI also came to realize that staying home and feeling sorry for myself was a bad idea. So I walked over to my nearby coffee place a couple of times and went to movie night at church, a project of my women’s circle.

The movie was great. The night was fun.

And I managed not to only one helping of nachos, one bag of popcorn and even only one yummy hot dog.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at (606) 473-9851.