A Cautionary Tale

Yeah, yeah. I know. Who am I.  Moving on.

I am attempting to type this blog post on my ipad without using my right thumb. Do you know how difficult that is. It is even more frustrating because the reason that I have that lovely brace on is because I have been stupid. Too much computer work and too much concentrated knitting will get you.....

De Quervain's tendonitis.

Otherwise known by the lovely name of "Mommy thumb." Look it up. You will probably be able to type it out faster than I can at the moment. I am a very fast and efficient typist, when I have the use of all of my fingers that is. You don't realize how much you use your right (or left) thumb until you don't have it.

The worst part of this, other than the fact that without the brace on, when I move my thumb in a certain way it feels like someone is simultaneously trying to rip my thumb off and stabbing my wrist with a red hot poker....

I am unable to knit. Just saying that makes me jittery. I knit when I watch TV. I knit when I read. I knit to calm myself down. That means that I knit every day for some portion of time. That has never been a problem before, but then HHBL and I drove to DC for a conference, and I knit almost all the way there and all the way back. Plus I have been doing a lot of repetitive motions on the computer. All was fine it seemed. There were slight "twinges" here and there but I ignored them, idiot that I am.

Tuesday morning I woke up and oh Mother Mary and all the saints did my wrist, right at the base of my thumb hurt and moving my thumb in certain ways made me wince for sure. Same on Wednesday and then last night the pain was so bad that it woke me up several times.

So here I am, with a "thumb stabilizer" that I will be wearing at all times unless showering and washing dishes. No heavy gardening, no knitting.

What makes this so very frustrating for me is that I KNOW the rules of knitting self care. You knit for no more than 20 minutes before you take a break, put the pointy sticks down a d do something else for a bit. You do not knit in 2 hour blocks. Idiot.

Also, I cannot take any NSAIDs like Ibuprophen. I can take Tylenol but it doesn't have the anti-inflammatory effects. I am a whiney, knitter unable to knit.

Fear me.