Yikes, I'm so sorry to hear that your pain is that bad, Susan! What a bummer, since it seems like you've been making great progress.

Yes to deep listening. I've been doing more of that -- focusing only one listening without multitasking at all, and it's amazing how much richer the experience is.

Are you interested at all in songwriting? Because you don't actually need to play to write a song. You can compose the melody/lyrics by singing it out loud into a recorder, and then when you're feeling better, you can put the chords to it. I write most of my stuff walking my dog or driving, with nary a guitar in reach.

How about playing around with piano instead? You can use one finger and go plunk plunk if necessary, just to play with melodies, and if you wrap your wrist, that should work okay? If you're working on theory, this would be a way to do that without it being completely out of context.

And let's not neglect inspiration, either -- there are some wonderful documentaries on music and musicians out there, and books, too, to inspire and provoke. David Byrne's How Music Works is a good read with lots of intriguing concepts in it. If you're into country at all, the Garth Brooks documentary on Netflix (The Road I'm On) is breaktakingly good -- a more courageous documentary by/about an artist I've not seen. And there's lots more, depending on your style and inclination.

Get better soon!