It's the latest essay followed by the latest episode

[sovay]

Holy God, is it inconvenient typing with one hand in a brace. Somehow when the nurse practitioner said "splint," I envisioned something smaller. I've seen vambraces that were less hardcore. I do not know if I will get any movies written about today. My keyboard-intensive job is going to be fun. I think I'm going to see about lying down.

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[sillylilly_bird]

Well, that's a story. 2 of the procedures were guyon's canal and carpal tunnel releases on both hands - both now well over 10 years ago and the left hand is doing fine. I also had a ganglion cyst removed from my left pulse point - right between the nerve and the artery. The other two were both on my right wrist - scaphoid non-union repair [bone graft and screw] and then screw removal when part of the bone died. The procedures were less than a year apart ~9-10 years ago. I have greatly reduced range of motion and since I'm hyper-mobile, it's really noticeable to me. It's been temperature and weather sensitive the whole time - can't handle cold at all and I've made dozens of wrist warmers. In the last year, the pain episodes have gotten seriously awful - to the point where I can't use my right hand at all. I still have my post-surgical splint and it's the most comfortable, supportive thing for when the pain is bad. I went back to my hand docs in January for a look-see and ended up getting a steroid shot in my wrist. Really not something you'd go for unless you're without other options; the actual injection wasn't bad, a little weird and uncomfortable, but then the lidocaine wore off..... It's really helped though. I don't expect it to completely free me of weather related pain, but if I can even get things toned down, that's a win. I also have an exercise from the hand therapist that's helping. That side of my wrist is arthritic - it's hard to make out the bone shapes in the x-ray. If the steroid shot [only can get 1 a year] + exercise can't control the pain well enough, then I'll go back for an MRI to see what the connective tissue is doing. If the pain gets bad enough that I can't control it or rein it in, the only other option is a proximal row carpectomy [PRC], where they remove the scaphoid, lunate, and triquetral bones. I have a strong feeling that I'll end up needing that in the next 10-15 years. I'm also getting arthritis in random knuckles - not horribly painful yet, but dammit, EVERYTHING I do, work and hobbies, is with my hands. Today, the wrist is pretty sore as there's weather. Weather sensitivity is weird; I'll feel something in any one of my weather sensitive bits before, during, and/or after a front moves through. Never the same twice. But my grip strength is good - my non-dominant hand is now ~30lbs stronger than my dominant one.