8 Months Update

I have not had the time of late to publish any updates on my hand because of my work and personal life getting quite full. But today I am on a plane re-routed from Jacksonville to Minneapolis to Toronto because of the big ice storm in Atlanta. Therefore I am on the plane with my tablet and Delta now offers internet so I decided to take advantage and post a quick update.

Obviously I am no longer dictating using Dragon software and can type as fast I could before the operation. If you have followed my posts you will know that I have consistently complained about my thumb and swollen fingers more than anything.  Just before Christmas I had talked on the phone with Dr. Steve McCabe (my surgeon) about the MRI results and my concern about the 0.8 cm bone fragment at the base of my thumb. I still have n appointment in a week (February 20 2014) to discuss this fragment.  But during the conversation he told me to try heat at night and if I do anything strenuous to use ice immediately afterwards.

I had started to microwave those magic bags at night an wrapped them around my wrist. I also continued with some exercises but not as often and strenuous as I was doing.  The second week of January I woke up one morning to discover that my finger’s were not swollen at all and that I had full finger movement. At first I thought it was a temporary improvement and I was afraid to do anything with my hands in the case that it would case swelling. But  day after day passed and my fingers were working perfect. Even my thumb could bend and was not swollen. The thumb still does not bend all the way but it bends about 60 % more than before.

So what’s up with that? It is now February 12th, 2014 and my fingers are stronger and better than I thought they would be.  I can make a fist, lift things, use the snow blower, cut vegetables, and even grab a side rail and pull my self up a set of stairs.

I do not have any pain in the wrist during day or night.  My fingers and the top of my hand are a bit stiff in the mornings but they loosen up almost immediately, especially if I wrap them around a warm coffee. Warm heat is GOOD!

I still  do not have much more wrist bending than I did. I have about 30 degrees bending inwards and and not more than 5 degrees outwards. I stopped in at a motorcycle store to test out the brake and throttle and it seems to be better than in the fall of this year.  I think that the fragment is still causing stiffness since if I massage the base of my thumb I can feel the slight sensitive area and stiffness that begins. So bottom line, I do not rub that area.

I created a short video on the plane showing how I can move my fingers now and what they look like compared to my other fingers. I think that I finally see some positive improvement. I will know much more after February 20th, 2014 when I return form my visit with the surgeon.