A New Challenger Approaches

Great news! My orthopedic doc says the broken foot is healing as expected; the shifty ankle injury seems to be manageable without any further intervention; and I graduated from physical therapy yesterday. Yay!

I am not as excited as I would be because I've been bracing my wrist for the past month and need to see my other orthopedic doc to get that sorted.

Ever since I learned how to type QWERTY-style in middle school, I have been a typing fiend. My word-per-minute rate is always pretty ridiculously high. I love typing fast, getting all those thoughts out of my head in lightning fashion without having to worry about handwriting legibility.

But there is a trade-off. And that is intermittent wrist issues. Typically, I'll get some mild carpal tunnel pain once or twice a year at most, need to wrap my wrist for a few days and nights, and then I'm fine. NBD. Alas, I have also developed a very specific repetitive stress injury that is resistant to that course of treatment: De Quervain Syndrome. My poor thumb. A decade ago, it was persistent and painful enough that I went for an orthopedic consult, who gave me this diagnosis. He also informed me that I have a cyst in my scaphoid bone, right in that same region, which may cause issues of its own. So. Time to see the orthopedic doc (hand & wrist) now that the orthopedic doc (foot & ankle) is done with me.

In the meantime, I am having to limit a number of activities. The one brace that works the best is the big strappy beast to the far left of the picture. It darn near fully immobilizes my thumb, which is why it relieves the De Quervain symptoms so well. Unfortunately, it makes typing a challenge, which is kind of what I need to do for the day job, and it's not all that easy to paint with either.

If you're wondering why I've been quieter here or elsewhere in the digital sphere, this is a big reason.