Splint didn't work. Cortisone shot didn't work. Third haircut did work. ;) End of Oct, after almost 3 months in a brace, I had surgery on my wrist to cut the sheath around the tendon to the thumb.
Not going to go into all the gory details. Let's just say that the brace has been off for 2 weeks and I'm starting to get my hand back...I think. I don't know. I've never had this kind of surgery before. I've never had my hand and wrist immobilized for four and a half months before. So I can't close my hand into a fist yet - and I can't squeeze a stress ball much (although I'm doing better than the first day that I tried) - and I can't really cut my meat yet - but I can butter bread and put cheesespread on a cracker. My hand and the knuckles on all my fingers are swollen. I can't carry a laundry basket upstairs, but I can use my good hand to drag it done, and can use both hands to handle the clothes. I can fold clothes, and turn a doorknob. Hal had to put up our Christmas trees (yes, that's plural) and take boxes up and down the stairs, and a friend helped me decorate.
What I'm saying is this: if you know me at all, you know I'm not a patient person. Ok, that may be an understatement. I want "normal" - and I want it
That's so hard to do, isn't it? We want to force things to be the way we want them to be - the way we are used to them being. Sometimes we try so hard to do things that we don't allow healing. Whether physical or emotional, we need to allow time to heal wounds before we move on to the new.
I lost my uncle yesterday. Two of the people in our church lost family members on Christmas Eve, and a friend lost her grandmother on Christmas Day. Just as my hand needs time to heal, so do my family and friends. We think we'll not ever be normal again, that things we did with those loved ones will never be the same. And we're right - things won't be the same. But normal will come again.
My hand may never be the same, but as time goes I'll be able to do normal things - either with it, or I'll learn to use my left hand.
Our lives are never the same after the loss of a loved one, but life will become "normal" again. It must. It will be a "new normal" - a different normal - that is, we will still feel the loss, but the memories will live on. Rest in peace, Uncle Bruce; Rest in peace, David and Jon; Rest in peace, Wilma. We will miss you, and we will see you again someday.
