How I Spent my Summer - part 1

I've been battling "new mom" tendinitis in my wrist since mid-May. There's a longer name for it, but it's less... memorable evidently. This specific tendinitis is very common among new moms, dentists, and people who bear weight on a cocked wrist. It's more painful than I ever ever imagined.

Tendinitis sounds so harmless and almost trivial. Nothing like "distal radius fracture" or "A/C separation" or even "hematoma." I've experienced all those things and they weren't nearly as painful. OK, maybe the shoulder. But tendinitis is like that unassuming red-headed chick at the martial arts tournament who's five foot nothing, kinda quiet, looks like she just fell off a charm bracelet... you know the one. You dismiss her almost immediately, but man, she attacks fast, hangs on like a badger, and will lay you low before you know she's even there.

The good folks at Physical Therapy tell me the remedy for tendinitis is immobility, so that the inflammation will go down and the tendon will work as normal. So for two months, I wore a splint. Kinda. Unfortunately I only half-heartedly kept my thumb immobile, so I suppose that's why it only half-heartedly attempted to heal.

In early July, I got a hard splint from Physical Therapy at Balboa Naval Medical Center that was molded specifically to fit my wrist. This would really keep the thumb immobile. I remarked as they were making the splint that it would be really sweet to have a splint that was molded against the grip on my mountain bike, so that I could ride in the splint without fear of additional injury. To my amazement, Alma looked up and said, "Oh, we could do that."

Alma tests the grip in my new splint.

New grip-friendly splint.

Eeeeexcelent! I'll test it out tomorrow!

(More on how I've spent my summer to come, including the bike ride to Little Italy with Jane's geriatric play group. I know you can't wait!)