Paining

It’s back. Four months since the last shot, that was ever so more effective, I had forgotten the 2:30am wakeups. The throbbing in the elbow, the wrist. Numb fingers. No position of lying down could allow sleep.

So I standup, go downstairs. Stretch. Drink an unfinished pop left on the counter. Pop Alleve pills. Read news on the phone. Grab ice. Maybe I can sit on the couch in the right position for a few hours, even 1 of sleep.

Pain. It’s just part of complain.

I‘m writing this for no reason to read, but for me to note. I have spouted out posts I felt important. Interesting. To what end? It does feel good. So I am thinking of something new. Writing just notes of the mundane, to put more ticks on my timelined self. This, the start, maybe the end, of a new category of Life Notes.

I’m remembering a newspaper cartoon, one of those single pane New Yorker style ones (no not the “On the Internet nobody knows you are a dog”). This one was pretty much a line drawing, the curve of what would be a tropical beach. Two figures walk the beach, a male figure talking talking talking, and a female who’s line in the caption is something like “Frankly, Bob, I don’t find your medical ailments that fascinating.”

No web search ever found it, so I did my worst to sketch it out in 5 minutes.

I cant say why I needed it, but again, this is my blog, get off my lawn.

The Pain had disappeared so completely since the last doctor visit in December, it disappeared. It did not exist.

Until maybe 3 weeks ago. Slight, then intense, but pretty much every night it has woken me up. Throbbed during the day. It goes away mostly, but never completely. This time around its nearly always the right wrist, elbow.

The Pain is carpal tunnel. It first visited 12 or more years ago when I lived in Arizona. The likely suspect is all the time on the computer keyboard, my lousy posture, lack of proper typewriter skills. I think not. The first time it flared up, it was painting.

I had decided to paint my small bathroom. The day after I finished the job, I felt the shooting jabs in my elbow and the wrist pain. After a doctor visit, possibilities of nerve issues, and a visit to a specialist in Flagstaff for a nerve conduction test, that was the diagnosis.

Ok.

I returned and got a shot of cortisone. Pain went away almost instantly, and actually never returned.

I forgot about Pain.

But Pain followed me after my move to Canada, showing up again, maybe after some intense yard work with pick and shovel. Pain went to a doctor. Then Pain went to a hand specialist, who discussed either surgery or trying cortisone shots to relieve. I opted for the latter, and got another referral to a neurologist in Regina.

I call him Dr. Hand. The routine every few months is taping the electrodes to my wrist, upper arm, pressing a button that issue small shocks. We silently watch the squiggle on the screen. It’s nerve conduction. I can surmise the idea of measuring how fast electricity travels a lenght of nerve but cant sy for sure I understand. At the end, he presses a button, reads a report, and says something like, “It’s pretty bad on the right, do you want a shot?” I say yes, and even if the left is bad, he’s willing to give me shot in both. “Come back in six months.”

Dr Hand is quirky. Sometimes chatty, sometimes all business. He makes quiet jokes, asks me about work, shares just a bit of his last travel to India. One visit, after the shot, he returned with a large fruit, an Asian pear. He gave one to his staff, I had seen him handing them out while in the waiting room. I thought he was handing out chocolate, “I have an extra one, do you want it?” Why not.

Sometimes when Pain rears up early, I have been able to call the office and get to see Dr. Hand earlier. So 3 weeks ago, when Pain was stopping by every night, I called. The receptionist was able to slot me in April 27 from my scheduled appointment in June. It was still 2 weeks out, I called this week as my sleep has been terrible. I was able to go from 4:00PM on Monday to 9:30am.

Pain is not big Pain. Plenty of people deal with larger Pain. My Pain is more of the annoying, nagging, I’m gonna keep you up all night Pain so you can be a Zombie at work.

Pain, you came from Pain-ting and you have me inwardly ComP[l]ain-ing.

But come Monday, Dr Hand will slip in the magic shot, and we say Adios.

For a while.

Featured Image: Be Without It flickr photo by cogdogblog shared under a Creative Commons (BY 2.0) license

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