Firstly

I have been off sick since the end of November and I can safely say I am thoroughly fed up. To the eyeballs fed up. Sick and tired of sitting at home, not being able to do squat. At first there was the operation to fix the CTS in my right hand. And although the wound healed nicely, the pain remained and was in fact getting worse. It turned out I had a related but separate problem. One that would prove a bit more difficult.

First of all of course there was the kicking inducing injection right into my wrist. IT HURT LIKE HELL! However, only days later, the pain had abated a fair bit and by the time I got to see the hand therapist for the first time, the pain was nearly gone. In order to make sure my wrist and thumb would go on being pain free however, I had to wear a splint. For three weeks. Non-stop. I only took it off when taking a shower and then I could barely use the hand. 

After three and a half weeks of wearing that splint, I went back to the hand therapist, she was happy and I was allowed to take it off more and more. At first it was only during meal times. Then it was for longer periods until I finally only wore it at night. Back to the hand therapist.

I was now splint free during the day, but it didn't mean I could do much with my hand. In fact, I could barely bend my wrist. So, that had to be trained. By that time I had been given the all clear to go out cycling and swimming (yes!), so that certainly helped by getting the hand to be more useful. But...

Even though the right hand was now nearing normalcy again, three and a half months in, my left hand still had unresolved business. I had been in two minds about having my left hand done. I hardly had any trouble with it, so would it not be wiser to defer until problems arose? Or would it be best to get it done now and be done with it? In the end I chose the latter, made an appointment with the surgeon and in I went. 

Last week I had my second hand operated on. Tie off arm, anastacia (you know!), slice open, cut something, put in stitches and within ten minutes my hand was being wrapped up with bandages. My Dad picked me up again and now I am recovering at home. The bandages come off today (it's been a week) and then I will battle the spider legs for a week, before they can come out. Another few weeks at home to make sure the wound heals fine and I can use the hand fine again and then hopefully back to work by the end of April.

By the time I will be back at work, I will have been gone about five months. My main problem was the fact that even though I was off sick, I wasn't sick as such. I wasn't in bed with a raging fever. I just couldn't use my hand(s). Frustration, boredom, probably even some apathy. On the other hand I know that I need my hands in my job. If I think about how I want to grab the steering wheel because I want to avoid pain, I might not be able to avoid accidents or even cause them. 

Right now though: light at the end of the tunnel. And pretty soon I will be back at work, wishing I was home watching television...

title

i did finish this challenge and am now virtually
going from land's end to john o'groats in the uk.

as you may have realised, i have not been an active blogger over the last few months. my right hand is just about fine again, which in turn left me to get the left one sorted. that happened last wednesday and it is now a struggle to get dressed in the morning again. seeing how it went with the right, i do expect to heal fairly quickly and should start the basics again in about two to three weeks. 

my time at home has been part boring, part okay though. i mean cycling inside is never going to be the most fun, but last week i finally managed to get out again and did some good cycling in town. not only without a goal, but also to the book store in town and to the pool. yes, i took up swimming again, which fine. the indoor cycling definitely has helped with my fitness. of course it is now off again for at least two weeks. that's when the stitches come out. 

there was the good thing about the olympics of course and i did see a fair bit of it: skating, both speed and figure, biathlon and some of the airial skiing and snowboarding. i also watched a lot of films recently, which i will talk about in an upcoming post. directly connected is reading which i have started again as well. films based on books you know. 

plus there is one more thing i have taken up again recently that i enjoy immensely and no, it has nothing to do with knitting or crocheting. those are both things i have yet to start doing again. crochet especially is quite hard on the wrist, so i do want to be 100% certain it will not cause me trouble.

anyway, that's it for now. next week i hope to start properly blogging again, but can i just say thank you to all who keep coming back to see how i am doing. it really means a lot to me.

I am so done!

I am. I am so so done. I just want to throw the splint in the nearest canal so it can be taken out to sea and drown, but I won't do that for several reasons. Reason number 1: I need it still. Even though the hand therapist told me I would have to start wearing it a bit less, there are still a fair few things I cannot or am not allowed to do without. Heavy duty stuff, making the bed with fresh sheets, sleeping. 

Reason number 2: I have plans for it once I can finally relegate it to the dustbin. I want to use differend coloured threads and such and turn it into a piece of art that will be highly personal. That will definitely have to wait, as I still am not that good in using my wrist.

Reason number 3: The splint is made of a plastic substance and plastic is not good to let loose in nature. NOT GOOD! So, even if I were to throw it out, I would use the proper channels to get rid of it. 

In other words, I have seen the therapist and she was happy with the progress so far. And over the past few days I have taken the splint off several times, mainly during meal times. I will have to do that more and more often now, although as I said: nights and heavy work excluded. Which also includes work of course. Yes, we may have power steering now, but no point undoing all the frustration of not using the hand for so long, to ruin it in one go. 

My boss did ask me the other day when it was the left hand's turn for the CTS and to be honest, I don't know. It does not cause me any trouble right now. The muscles in my left arm have gotten used to more heavy lifting as well (tea pot, pans etc). However, it is a case of preventative as opposed to curative. I will have to have a meeting with the surgeon first I think, before making a decision either way. 

Stung and splinted

This will stay in the cupboard for a while longer

A week and ahalf ago now , I got the nasty injection in my hand and as soon as the injection pain was gone, the other pain started to go as well. Mind you, there were still movement s that would cause discompfort to a great degree and I used my old CTS splint at night to keep my wrist from bending too much.

Then last week I got to see a hand therapist. She loked, asked and then continued to make a splint. A bit of heated plastic was moulded around my hand and then go cut to size. Fasternes were attached and I was told I had to wear it for at least three weeks. I am allowed to take if off occasianlyy, but I have to wear it when using the hand. 

So far it has been okay to wear. Better at least than the other one, which allwed much more movement of the hand itself and did not incorportate that thumb. It also causes some problems, mainly with food making and other fernickity household chores like folding laundry. 

The plan is now: werar the splint for at least three weeks and then ahave an other pappointment with the theratpist. Then I have to start using it less and less, providing the pain is gone. She thoguht it was promising the hand was laready quite painless now, so had good hpes for a full recoery. 

In the mean time I cannot drive yet, as incsurance will blame me if anything ehppanes. (good grief, typing with ps;ingt is hard). On the plus side: the Olympicas will start soon and I will have all the opprotuninty to watch the lot. On the negatve side: plast ic surgery (and heand therapy) are not coveried and have to pbe paid for by me, at least until I reach my annuwal allowance, which ast this rate ig coming fast. Mind you, the first ops were last year and then the new year started. putiing my allowance back to the zero.

Anyway. So far so good and before I know it the hand will be fine again. But, no moving anywhere anytime soon!

Oh goody

Me and my mum getting silly

Last week I had written a whole post about what I had been up to during the last few weeks of 2021. I couldn't put any photos in however and there was something else impossible, so I decided to publish and go back to it. All that remained was the title! Nothing else. As it had hurt badly already, I gave it up as a bad job and haven't looked at my computer until now.

Space saving for all my films

As you may recall my sister arrived finally (it was the sixth attempt) and she stayed with me almost the entire time. Plenty of plans were made: hairdresser, family visits, theater, going places. We managed to get to the hairdresser just in time as only a few days later the country went in lockdown again. *sigh*

'Sjoelen' on New Year's Eve. I lost.

For Christmas we did go see my brother and his family and New Year's Eve was spent at my parents, together with some friends. Other than that no family (apart from our parents) or friends, no shopping trip, no going places. The latter might still have been an option, but the gammy knee was not cooperating. 

Decorating cookies

Instead we watched Christmas films, read, watched some more television, baked, cooked and watched a bit more television. She spent three weeks here, before returning home again last week. Hopefully she will be able to come over again in May. I am counting down the days.

Since the start of 2022, I visited several health thingies. The first one was to get my booster jab. This one didn't hurt at all (unlike my second vaccination, where some numpty just aimed and thrust), but that was short lived. Later in the evening, the area did start to get very sore and by the next day I was feeling a bit worse for wear: a bit nauseous, a bit queasy, a bit shivery. Nothing really bad, but noticeable nonetheless.

'Gourmet' dinner'

Then two days later I made my way to the plastic surgeon again. Despite the wound healing a treat, it is still a bit red and swollen. It was not that however that saw me see the surgeon instead of them tackling my left hand (which had been the original plan). I had had severe pain in my thumb/wrist prior to the operation and it returned the minute the anastacia (you know my problem) wore off. Had the operation gone wrong?

Stout jelly, trifle, chocolate mousse and key lime cheesecake

In short? No. I got treated for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and that was successful. The trouble with the thumb is related, even similar, but different. It is the De Quervain Syndrome and it's painful. Especially as you use your thumb for just about everything! It can be caused by so many things, including manual work like housework, knitting and a host of other things. The main trigger was most likely the recent move.

There are (like with CTS) three main ways to combat it: rest, corticosteroid injection or surgery. The first would mean not being able to use the hand at all and hopefully it will get better over time: many many months. The second would involve a nasty injection right into the most painful area and let that do its work together with hand therapy and a custom made splint. The third option is when nothing else helps, but contrary to the CTS operation, it is a bit more dangerous due to the location.

There was a ban on fireworks. Hahahaha!

Rest was not really an option as it would take too long. The third was not really given as an option, so the second it was. And I can tell you it was a very nasty injection. I even kicked the doctor, for which I never even apologised. It took a while for the pain of the injection had gone (several hours) and then I was pain free. Not for that long though, the pain did come back, although I think it's not as bad. At the end of this week I will see a hand therapist and get a splint, until then I try and wear my old wrist splint to keep movement to a minimum. 

So, that has happened recently. I will try to get back to my computer a bit more regular now, but as the hand is still not quite cooperating, it is not the easiest. 

The teapot

Today's socks

The main way to keep my headaches at bay is drinking enough. Two large glasses of water in the morning, tea or water during the day and perhaps a hot chocolate in the afternoon or evening. Peppermint or orange flavouring optional.

And since July that all worked quite well and I had fewer headaches. Then I got to be home and for some reason I did not drink enough. Which meant that last week an attack started that lasted six days. Although not as bad as they used to be, it was bad enough and I realised that just getting a mug of tea was not enough.

On the day the stitches were removed, I had to do some shopping and actually saw a really nice teapot. Only 20 euros as well, which wasn't that bad. But how to keep the tea hot in the teapot? I used to own a tea stand and light, but left them behind in Northern Ireland. I don't like tea purses like my Mum has and I cannot make a tea cosy right now.

This is the only voucher I have!

My Mum had a possible solution. Why not check out the savings program of Douwe Egberts. They are the coffee makers here in the Netherlands and for nearly 100 years they have had a savings program where they have vouchers on each pack of coffee or coffee related product they sell. Pickwick tea is also included in this program. The vouchers have values of between 2 and 100 points and can be exchanged for coffee or tea related items.

I checked out the site and found a lovely teapot. It was nearly 70 euros (!), which I thought was quite steep (no pun intended), but I could pay with points as well. For every euro you needed 2 points. A total of 13,798 points were needed. I had 4! My Mum went upstairs to get her stash (donations from friends and family) and came down with three bags containing a total of 13,000. I was still short. Mind you, I could pay the balance in money, but my Mum had another trick up her sleeve: the kitchen drawer.

She dug and dug and my Dad and I tallied. In the end all the vouchers from the drawer added up to about 2,300! I took out the 798 I needed and the rest was put in bags to be kept for a future buy. Then I went to the shop where I could get the teapot.

The new teapot with one of my Moomin Christmas mugs

I arrived, saw the teapot, handed over the points and now I am in the proud possession of a gorgeous double walled teapot that will keep my tea hot. I have been using it for several days now and I am very pleased with it: it is sleek and modern and it doesn't drip! It shall definitely help me keep my fluids up.

Righty-oh

I am currently wearing this one

On Monday morning I had a phone appointment with the plastic surgeon's office to talk about how the operation went and if I had any trouble now. I told the assistant that even though the wound was doing fine and the CTS pain had disappeared, another pain had not. I thought the pain in my wrist was due to the CTS, but we are now questioning that.

Yesterday's offering

The main reason for that is that the pain was the same prior to the operation and after the anastaseia (still can't write that) had worn off, it returned the same as before. It is a pain that seems to sit on the inside knuckle of the wrist and it basically prevents me from doing a fair few things. If I don't do anything at all, it will feel fine, but after a while I can feel my wrist start to become stiffer. Not good.

A little dress, but I will only wear it with jeans

If I do something, I try to minimise certain movements as they do cause a lot of pain. Carrying a full cup of tea is out, so that is done left-handedly. Carrying something heavy is out so that is done double handedly or left hand/right arm or not at all, as the left arm is now feeling the strain on muscles as well. 

A real snuggle hoody

The two main things right now that are wrong with my right hand are the wrist (and the burning/grating sensation after a wrong move or prolonged usage) and the thumb which can only be partially used. Which of course hinders dexterity a great deal. 

A men's jumper, but it fits, so I don't care

The plan of action right now is to first get the right hand in order, so early January (first opportunity due to the holiday season), I will have a sight appointment with the plastic surgeon and possibly an x-ray as well to see what is in fact wrong. Only after the right hand is okay will we continue with the left hand. Otherwise I might be completely unhanded for several weeks.

The inspiration to this year's Christmas card

Of course this does not mean I cannot do anything. Typing and writing are easier now, albeit painful. I am glad I have written and sent all my Christmas cards! I do the dishes and have found other ways of holding stuff down to get it clean. I cut with my right hand as I am not a natural lefty and realise a bit of pain is better than cutting fingers off. Well, I think so anyway.

Preferably not in bandages though!

Other than that: the wound looks good, especially now the spider legs are gone. Still a bit sensitive to the touch, but feeling better every day. The headache (the first attack since July people, which should deserve a post all of its own) has finally subsided and yesterday morning the world was white after a light dusting of snow. 

Another recent addition

In a couple of days I will be picking my sister up from the airport and in less than three weeks it is Christmas! All in all: Yeah!!

Spider legs on Brom's birthday

No no! Don't worry, he did not receive spider legs on his birthday. He would not have liked that at all and neither would I. The spider legs are mine. Well, not real spider legs, but the stitches in my hand. They look and feel like spider legs. However, today they will be coming out. This afternoon to be precise. 

Apart from some swelling still, the wound looks really good and well healed up. A bit sensitive to the touch, but not painful. That can not be said for my wrist. I had this pain prior to the surgery and it has continued until now, although it does not spread to the arm anymore.

Last week I tried to do some knitting and although I could do it, the pain was very much not good. So I decided that that would need to wait a while longer. I am doing the dishes every day now, even though that is quite painful too. And then on Friday I developed my first headache attack since July (!!!), which left me out of the game for a day or two.

But who cares about my hand and (lack of) use of said appendage when today it's BROM'S BIRTHDAY! Yes, he turned 48 today and is enjoying it very much. I had promised him a new pair of Christmas socks, but unfortunately I haven't been able to make them yet. He says that it's fine and it's not Christmas yet anyway. 

Miss O wanted to say Happy Birthday Brom too

I did make him some other socks prior to OotH-day though and he has been wearing them Every Single Day he likes them so much. So, hopefully he will get his proper present soon. We are all crossing our fingers.

Pity party

Miss O in dreamland

So, over the last few days I have been having a bit of a pity party here at number 7. Feeling a bit sorry for myself and such. It all started really with the combination of dishes and bra. I couldn't do one nor could I undo the other. It needed a solution which would be my Mum. 

Alas, my Mum was having a bit of a problem herself and so did my Dad: Covid-19 had come to number 49. Yes, they both tested positive and were not feeling very good with it. The sniffles, the coughing, the slight loss of voice, taste and smell. Not good. 

St Nicholas and Peter

Another solution presented itself, although less favoured: my friend. The reason I didn't favour that as much was the fact that she herself was recovering from a broken foot and even though she was getting to be more mobile, she was not up to scratch yet.

But, a date was set that she and her husband would come over to help. Until fate threw not one but several large spanners in the works. Because I had been in touch with both my parents prior to them testing positive, it was deemed a good idea I would get tested too. I could have the Corona virus myself. 

Asleep again

As I was calling my friend to cancel her coming over, she told me that they were all feeling below par and had decided to get tested themselves as her daughter had been in touch with someone who had been in touch...

On Saturday morning I made my way to the nearest test site, which fortunately wasn't too far as the only means of getting there was on foot. It was drizzling, it was cold and it was just not nice. Test taken I returned home to wallow in self pity. enjoy a quiet afternoon.

My friends all tested negative and by the early hours of Sunday I also had a negative result. It took some time to actually get logged in to see the result and the atmosphere was pretty grim here for a while, but I got there eventually. 

Meanwhile I had been trying to do the dishes myself and managed a couple of plates and a bit of cutlery before giving up due to pain. I have done a little bit each day and as of today I am nearly through the lot. I also somehow managed to undo the bra I wore and even managed to get a new one on. Very painful, but it is something.

It's 3 cm, the tape measure kept moving.

Last night I unwrapped my hand. The (male) surgeon had told me that he would make a 1,5 cm incision. Not sure what kind of tape measure he used, but look at the photo! That is no 1,5 cm!! It must have been quite black and blue under the bandages, as there are still some yellow remnants on my wrist and some blackish/blueish remnants in the palm of my hand.

Mu virtual outlook in Iceland right now

It is also still quite swollen and I don't have complete use of the hand yet. Some (sudden) movements are very painful and they prevent me from using it very much. It did feel nice to be able to wash my hands properly again though. Next week the five stitches will come out. 

Other than that I am doing fine. Still not reading much, but I am watching a lot of television and the stationary bike also gets a lot of action. I was up to 18 km yesterday. On my regular bike I only ever got to 9, so I am doing okay with that. I will have to if I want to finish my virtual tour of Iceland's Ring Road. A medal awaits at the end and I still have 75% to do. 

On the plus side of life: my parents are on the mend, my Dad sounding almost like his old self yesterday (he was very nearly voiceless), I was negative, the weather is nice, my sister is coming in less than two weeks and Christmas is just around the corner as well. 

Recovering

Doesn't it sound as if I were seriousl ill? Instead of just recovering from am minor operation. And it was minor: in by 5 to 11, out by 10 past! The actual operation I did not feel, the anastasiea (I never know how to spell that and with two fingers this becomes even worse) worked a treatz. it was painful for my arm however as tyhey had to stem the bloodflow to my hand. They did not want a bloodbath for some reason...

But it didn't last that long and then the nurse covered my hand in a thick bandage and I was good to go. 

I am not allowed to get the bandage wet now and as I am an unwilling and clumsy leftie by now, I am having some troubles, but all in all I am doing okay. 

Apart from one thing, well a few really. I really do need to do the dishes, but as I still have some pain in my wrist itself and the hand is so thickly bandaged, that is nearly impossible. I will give it a go, but I don't know how far I will get. I did think about asking my mother, but she and my dad have tested opositive on their home test and are now waiting to hear if it is certain they do have Corona. The are both feeling quite under the weather anyway.y

On their way to get tested yesterday, they did drop off the hometrainer for me though. no walking (gammy knnee) and no proprer cycling left this option, but with my parents' home out of bounds... so, I will get back to indoor cycling today, after all, how else am I going to complete the Iceland Ring Road>.<?

Getting dressed is fine, apart from the bra. I am wearing a sports one now, but tthere is now way my dexterity is good eough yet to take it off, so I would need help there as well. And I can write, but only at a certain angle,so I do mst by writing with ny left hand. Dod I say I was a nwilling leftie?u

Right now you have read my post and I do want to apologise for all mistakes. It/s hard enough typing once, going back for corrections is not happening!