Slightly Off Center

It's been a week since the surgery, which I spent mostly sitting up in bed, reading, with occasional breaks at the computer to catch up with publicity projects for Clayfolk and Club Mud (and a first cut at 2023 taxes).  Head still stuffed with snot, twice-a-day saline rinse notwithstanding. Was looking forward to getting the splints out this afternoon when the clinic called: Dr. Chen was in surgery Thursday afternoon. Could I wait until Friday morning?

Oh hell no. 

So I get to meet Dr. Wong this afternoon to find out if I can really breath through this thing.

Wish me luck.

The worst part of having to get up at 3:30 am to check Denise into the Surgery wing at 5, is that the cats, per doctor's orders, weren't allowed to sleep with her on the bed.

So Flynn complained, loudly, outside the bedroom door all night.

Hands still a little sore, but functional; vague huge bruise on ball of both thumbs. Was able to carry boxes of pots in and out of shed to sort for our seconds sale next weekend, and carry bags of groceries in from the car.

Still can't throw, as I'm not supposed to get the incision sites wet. This is also a great way of getting out of doing dishes, I suppose.

Long ago, near the start of my pottery career, word was just getting out in pottery circles about carpal tunnel syndrome. Didn't know if I was at risk or not, but I was throwing a lot of hummingbird feeders (9 dozen a week!), so was feeling a little concerned. 

Fortunately for me, one of the other folk DJs at KLCC was married to a neurologist, and he offered to give me the test, gratis. Cackling like a mad scientist, though, describing what he was about to put me through.

If you've never been tested, well, it ain't fun. It's a nerve conductivity test; electrodes are attached to various parts of your arms, and shocks are delivered to different points on your hands to see how much of the signal is getting through the restricted channel of the wrist (the carpal tunnel). It's a whole lot of ouch. Repeatedly.

The news was not great, but better than I'd feared. I had incipient CTS on both hands, but with some care, I could control it. Sleeping with wrist braces, for one thing (the preying mantis wrist pose I was used to sleeping in puts pressure on the nerves). Anti-inflammatory doses of naproxen sodium (Aleve), roughly twice the over-the-counter amount. Mixing up my work schedule, taking breaks, not doing too much throwing at a time.

I kept things under control that way for nearly two decades. Until about three years ago, when I started having trouble breathing. After the mandatory panic and EKGs (when someone of my size says "I'm having trouble inhaling," everybody defaults to Heart Attack!), I finally got a diagnosis: late onset asthma. Which can be exacerbated by naproxen.

So no more anti-inflammatories. Immediately started noticing pins-and-needles, numbness. Not in the studio, oddly, but elsewhere. Driving was the worst. Typing, occasionally. Sometimes even just holding a book.

It finally occurred to me last fall that I have insurance now (hey, I've been a self-employed artist three-quarters of my adult life), so I got a referral to be tested once again. The shocks aren't any better than they were thirty years ago, and the result about what I expected: no longer incipient, I've got full-blown, bi-lateral carpal tunnel syndrome. Both sides.

At least the surgery is better now. They no longer slice your wrists lengthwise. I'm having what the underwriter card I used to have to read at KLCC call "mini-incision, endoscopic carpal tunnel release." Simple, quick, 20 minutes and its done. Another 30 to come out of anesthesia (I'm much too squeamish to do it under local).

Surgery is tomorrow afternoon, both sides the same day. I've tweaked my production schedule to give me a couple of weeks off between throwing and glazing. Hoping it will be enough.

Trying not to be terrified. My 85-year-old mom just had this done; it's no big deal, right? Right?

Wish me luck.