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Tenosyno . . . what?

I don't think I mentioned this, but last year I got a bad case of DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis. This is commonly known as "Mother's Wrist". It basically becomes excruciatingly painful to pick up your child(ren) because the tendons along your thumb are irritated. (Or possibly enflamed, but I keep picturing a burning wrist in my head. Nice.)

It got so painful that I started asking Lisher to pick up a baby and hand her to me so I wouldn't have to bend my wrists that way. I feared dropping a child. Getting a kid out of the Exersaucer was tear-inducing.

So I went to a sports medicine doctor who injected cortisone into my wrist and, like voo-doo, the pain went away. Magic! I was so grateful I even wrote a thank you note, elevating him to Miracle-Worker status. Until about 2 weeks ago. The pain came back.

So today I returned to the same doctor. It was a little embarassing since I really got quite exuberant in my thank you note. But he was quite cute about it and almost thanked me. He said, "I've gotten two notes as a doctor and yours is hanging on the bulletin board in my office."

And that made my day.

So another cortisone shot, and pending side effects: the area of injection becomes ghostly white and caves in, like an indented wrist. I say: whatever works. My wrists might not be so pretty anymore, but at least I can grab Ana and Lily out of the car seat and not scream in pain.

3:33 p.m. 2008-03-03

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