First of all, I picked out flowers for my homemade vases! I'm very happy with how they turned out and am excited to find another homemade project to work on.
Now for the main story of today's blog:
I want to introduce you all to my friend Gertrude! Below you will see Gertrude. She is a growth inside my wrist. She is super hard to see in a photo, but if you look closely you will see a lump right where my wrist bends. Its almost directly up from my index finger. If you can't find it, don't feel bad. Photos just don't do Gertrude any justice.
At the end of last summer, I was having a lot of wrist problems and pain. I had been biking a lot, and figured I injured something from holding onto the handles bars. I stopped biking, as I could not grip the handle bars without experiencing pain and discomfort. I was also having a difficult time holding pretty much anything in my right hand. As some of you know, I broke my right elbow a few years ago, and I still have small issues with that, so I also thought that maybe this was just some leftover pain from that injury that had been aggravated while biking. I tried to rest it out, but the pain was changing and I was getting frustrated. I went to the health clinic at work, and had a provider examine my wrist. The doctor thought that maybe I was having a work related injury. I was given a splint and some exercises to work on, and scheduled a follow-up appointment for 6 weeks. The splint and exercises were not really helping. When I went back for my follow up, we discussed a lump that had formed in my wrist. This lump is called a Ganglion Cyst, but which I now call Gertrude.
Ganglion Cysts are quite common in joint areas in our bodies. Usually, they are not harmful, but can be excruciatingly painful. Since mine is on my dominant hand, causing a lot of pain and tingling in my hand and fingers, and limiting my activity level with my right arm, the health clinic at work referred me to an Orthopedic Specialist. I went to the Orthopedic doctor to have Gertrude evaluated. The doctor tried to aspirate, or drain, the cyst. They do this by sticking an 18 gauge needle (which is a pretty thick needle) into the cyst and they try to suck the fluid out. Normally, this is a very helpful procedure for theses cysts, but for some reason, they couldn't get mine to drain. I was sent home with yet another splint, and good bruise.
I was very frustrated with the pain. I can handle pain, but when pain limits me from doing things that I like to do, I'm not a happy person to be around. The cyst did not go away, and the tingling fingers became worse. I had a follow up this past week with the Orthopedic Specialist again, and they have decided to do surgery to completely remove the entire cyst. I'm scheduled for surgery this Thursday. I'm a little nervous, but at the same time so happy that there is an end in sight to this pain and discomfort. I know the surgery is going to hurt, but at least afterwords, knowing the pain will go away makes me pretty excited.
That's the story of Gertrude and I. Not sure how well I will be able to blog after the procedure, but I'll try my best to document things. Until then, have a fabulous day!
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