Friday, June 02, 2006

Poor Mr. Hand

Usually, with me, *Poor Mr....* refers to my left foot.

But just now, my right hand qualifies too.

I'm scheduled for surgery to fix him up on Friday, June 9. One week away. My dad's birthday.

Now, y'all should skip these posts if the health stuff isn't for you. It seems to help me deal with it all, so post it I shall. This one's getting broken up into parts, which I'll piece out bit by bit, so as not to bore myself too much.

The hand's problem is called tenosynovitis. Synovial fluid is the juice that cushions joints and tendons. Synovitis is inflammation involving the synovial fluid. When it gets inflamed around tendons, it's tenosyovitis.

That's what I got that special custom-made splint for. I'll get another one after the surgery.

My fool of an immune system jumps at a chance to inflame anything, so I get these type problems pretty often. Besides *regular* rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammation in most of my connective tissue, I get a lot of tendonitis, synovitis, what have you. Usually, my brand of synovitis comes in little pea-sized *pain balls* by my joints. The synovial fluid leaks out, and makes a sort of balloon. After a long time, it heals and absorbs back into the body.

Not this time.

This time it's a tendon, not a joint.

And, it's on the outer part of my right hand. I'm right handed.

As in, write handed.

As in, my primary cane hand.

And that's just the beginning.

So it never had much chance to heal in the first place. I just use that right hand all the time. Hard not to.

2 comments:

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

Maybe this is why we have two! (but probably not.) I hope this heals quickly.

k said...

I'm always congratulating myself on all my extra parts. Ten fingers, got plenty let over - like that. And Walter has a seriously messed up right foot. Between us we have one good pair of feet. So we share. It works out.

This is going to be an interesting one. The healing part can be tricky - sometimes I go very fast, sometimes I kind of don't heal at all. I have some bruising on my legs that's around a year old.