Not Necessarily Interesting News

Last Friday I got the official results of my Nerve Conduction Study. My doc confirmed the other doc’s diagnosis, severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. She suggested that sugery is the best way to fix it. I told her whatever she thought would make the pain and numbness go away is what I want to do.

She scheduled surgery for the 22nd with a pre-op appointment on the 16th. Great, I finally will get things fixed. Or so I thought. I got a call from the doc’s office Thursday afternoon saying that they had to cancel my pre-op appointment. The reason they gave is that the worker’s comp insurance company was taking their time deciding what to do.

Figures, that’s all they’ve been doing since the start. The numbness and pain have gotten progressively worse over the last 4 months. I now can’t sleep because the numbness and tingling is so bad. My right wrist is now as bad as my left ever was. I’m afraid to file a claim for it too because I know how big a pain in the ass it is. I guess that’s their plan, make it so annoyingly frustrating to file a claim that maybe you won’t.

Have you ever smashed your finger with a hammer or in a door? Imagine having that numb, throbbing feeling in all of your fingers except your pinky 24 hours a day. That’s me right now. Last night as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep I thought to myself

‘Hey, it’s not that tough a surgery, maybe if I get hopped up on Vicodin and find some local anesthetic I could do the cut myself.’

We were sitting around the day after Christmas and I decided to do something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I decided to cut my hair. My hair had gotten past shoulder length and since I have very curly hair it was getting to be a lot of work. I figured I take it a bit shorter. Things got a bit out of hand.

I went from long-haired hippie to bald. I’d always told my wife and myself that if I ever noticed myself starting to lose hair I’d shave it all off. At Christmas I noticed just the slightest thinning near my temples. True to my word, I nuked my hair. I had to go out and buy a few hats to keep my head warm as now I feel every draft and breeze. My wife loves it and won’t keep her hands off my skull.
It’s been a bit over a month and even though it’s a whole lot more work than long hair was I think I’ll keep it.

Starting last October I noticed some tingling and weakness in my left hand. It gradually got worse so I saw my doctor about it. He said it appeared to be Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and referred my to an orthopedic surgeon. I decided to file it under Worker’s Comp since I had been doing a bunch of overtime since they laid off a bunch of people at work it seemed to be work related. If I had known then what I know now about the Worker’s Comp system I might not have. Talk about a pain in the ass. It took three months to get authorization to see the Ortho. The Worker’s Comp lady implied I was faking it. Sure, yeah, I’m faking it. Watch how I can jab a knife into my completely without feeling fingers and tell me that.

I saw the Ortho just after New Year’s. She said it looked like classic CTS and wanted to do a Nerve Conduction Study. She couldn’t do it right then as she wasn’t authorized to do so and had to get approval from the insurance company.

I finally got the Nerve Conduction Study done today by a specialist. It was pretty cool and interesting seeing my nerves respond to the poking and prodding. Place a receiver on a finger, shock a nerve in my forearm and watch my fingers dance. Well, it was cool until he broke out the needles. He started on my triceps and biceps. Stick a needle in and have me flex the muscle. You get to hear the sounds of your muscles working over the speaker which was cool. The digging the needle around under the skin looking to hit a specific nerve didn’t hurt so much as it was irritating.

Everything was cool until he got to sticking them in my hand. The one in the palm hurt. A lot. As he was doing it I noticed my vision getting a bit blurry then switch to tunnel vision. I fought what I knew was coming. He finished that test and I asked if he was done. After he said yes I told him I’d need to lie down. Bam! I fell over on the table. I’ve never fainted and didn’t quite this time either but things went dark and my hearing went out. Weird. After a minute I sat up and all was fine. Not a fun feeling

Once I was up he gave me the results. He said I have ‘significant severe’ Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my left hand. I said ‘So it’s not all in my head?’ He said definitely not. From what I saw on his screen I’m running at less than half capacity of what my nerves should be. He also said I have damage to the ulnar nerve running through my elbow. He said that could be caused by resting my elbow on a table which makes sense since I do that a lot to rest my hurting wrist. Next week I see my doctor again to see what the course of treatment will be. I’m pretty sure it’ll be surgery as that’s what the nerve specialist seemed to think too. Oh boy.