Hand & Box Report

Last week I visited the hand specialist. He confirmed that I have trigger thumb and two triggering fingers on my right hand (my ring and index fingers), with the thumb being the worst. He said there's really no clear cause, and that while restricting activity and anti-inflammatories can help, they don't necessarily cure it.

I could have gotten a cortisone shot around the thumb tendon that day, but I had Quigley in the crate and didn't want to have my hand incapacitated for the rest of the day. Plus I wanted to see if the chondroitin and glucosamine would work. The bottle recommends you take three capsules for 1-2 months, so I'm waiting to see if there's improvement at the end of two months. It seems like there is some, but it's not dramatic by any means. And the fingers seem to change. One day the ring finger is triggering, the next day it's the index finger.

If it doesn't work out, I can call whenever I want to set up an appointment for an injection, and I don't have to worry about it spreading or getting so bad there's no hope but surgery. At least at this point.

It's not necessarily a repetitve injury related thing, though it can be. Or it can be from an injury to the base of the finger where the tendons have thickened. It can be related to another condition like arthritis or diabetes (I don't have either of those). More often it has no clear cause. It is more common in woman than men, and often begins between ages 40 and 60.

Dr. Margolis doesn't really recommend the chondroitin/glucosamine route, but he was fine with me waiting to see what would happen. He said that sometimes it just goes away by itself, too. Why do I suspect it might go away as soon as I have this draft finished?

Assuming I ever finish it, which at the rate things have been going seems doubtful. LOL. Not really. Today I woke up realizing that I had taken back Quigley's biting problem from the Lord and was trying to solve it myself again -- feeling like I had to constantly be interacting, watching him, dealing with the situation. But when you trust the Lord with all your heart (thinking) and do not lean on your own understanding, you aren't supposed to be thinking about the problem and what to do about it. You leave the problem to Him.

When I saw that I could just put the whole biting thing into His hands and leave it, and not feel like I have to take a puppy class, or some other class, or find the best solution, training tip, or be the best trainer, but could just leave it alone and let Him handle it -- in His time -- the peace returned. So that's how I'm dealing with it today. If he bites, I do the same things I've always done, but I'm not going to get into that place where I'm thinking I have to get it stopped NOW.

And today was great. He hardly made any skin-teeth contact at all. I actually had him outside quite a bit, too, so I got a lot of thinking work done on Box. I decided not to include a number of scenes I'd planned, rearranged chapters and a scene or two. I'm now working on chapter 14 again, but I've taking the second half of the old ch 14 out and put it in 15 and have a new scene I'm adding to the end of the new 14. Once finished, I can move on to 16, which is already sketched in, or maybe even 17, depending on how I'm led.

Tomorrow is another day.

Grace,
Karen