Hooray for ... well... everything.

Dearest My Peeps,

Hooray! Hooray Hooray Hooray! I'm in a very good mood tonight. I'm not entirely sure why, I just am. It was a pleasant shift at work, which was quite nice. I wasn't expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Not too much is new. Well, some is new, but it's not too much. On the 25th, Pat & his Mum came up to the Miramichi for a visit. Pat had some stuff to do for school & she had some errands to run. So we got together and had lunch. It sure was nice to see them both again. His mother is super nice. As for Pat, well, he's.. Pat. That's enough, that he's Pat. Best bit of the whole subject is that he is coming back for good on the 4th of September. I work that day from 9 till 5, but I'm going over after work to spend some time with him. Hooray! His folks were supposed to be bring him up earlier in the day & then I presume they were headed back to Fredricton. However, he told me last night that they're going to bring him up a bit later in the day & that we are going to all get together for supper. His nanny is up visiting & she's going to be there to & everything. Hooray!!

On a less thrilling note, I was into the hospital on Thursday evening after work. I went to pick up my bookbag after work, so I could go out to the car & well, go home. I thought for a minute that my hand was breaking it hurt that badly. So I switched hands, took my bookbag and went to the car. I couldn't move my hand at all it hurt so badly. I got in the car & put my wrap back on, which by this point was starting to look more like some kind of rag. That's what you get when you buy cheap junk. Junk. But when you can't afford the good stuff, you take what you can get.

So that's all good. I went to pick Mum up at work (she got off at 6 too, so we were travelling together). It was much harder than usual to drive, since I couldn't use my right hand at all. I had to shift into gear with my left hand, & I had set the emergency brake & had to undo that with my left hand. Wow was it ever hard to do. I got it all done though & stopped for Mum. She was waiting for me outside, but there was a girl with her. Mum told me that she was going to go inside to see if the girl's boyfriend was still at work & that she'd just be a minute or two. So I drove around the parking lot & was waiting for her by the door when she got back. She knew my hand was sore & after very little questioning, discovered that I couldn't even flex my fingers from the agonizing pain. She asked if I wanted to go to Emergency, since I couldn't very well do much with my hand in such a state. I answered that I wasn't going to ask her to go wait at the hospital with me after working all day. Honestly, it wouldn't have been nice. I know I worked all day too, but that's not the point. She insisted though, saying that if I couldn't use my hand, I'd better just go in & have it done with.

So in I went. I knew the lady who was doing the recieveing from work, so that was nice. Anyway, Monday through Friday from 6 till 8 there are two walkin clinics in the city, one in Newcastle & one in Chatham, so the hospital wasn't very busy at all. It was great. We were in an out in nearly exactly an hour. Mum read her book & I listened to my iPod. The doctor didn't say precisely what the problem was, but that it shouldn't be anything too serious. He then told me to use cold packs & advil, because the advil should take down both the pain & any swelling inside. He also gave me a prescription for a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome brace & a quality wrap too top it off, in case I couldn't afford the wrap right away. Fortunately Mummy had some money in the bank, so she got me the wrap that very night at our Pharmacy. Hooray! It was $29.99 taxes included, but it works wonders, that's for sure.

Best part of the whole thing is that I had a doctor's appointment the very next morning to have it looked at. Needless to say I called & cancelled; it seemed a little useless to go in to the doctor after having already seen one at the Hospital. Go figure.

It hasn't hurt severely since I've started wearing the brace on a regular basis. It's starting to get pretty tired now, but nothing like the severe pain it was. I've been taking my brother's advice & sitting up really straight (well, straight for me anyway). I've also been taking a different lad's advice & am keeping it parelell to the floor, by letting it lean on my keyboard tray. I suppose, I should do that with both arms, shouldn't I? Honestly, I don't think I could handle having this happen in the other wrist. I might go entirely crazy. The brace is enough to drive a preacher to murder. It nearly completely immbolizes the wrist so I can't use it. It's padded, which is nice, but it gets very hot & sweaty when I do anything, which is all the time that I'm at work. I'm constantly taking it off to adjust it, because it is driving me batty.

I tryed not wearing it off & on today at work, but wow did it ever start to throb in a hurry when I had it off. I do mostly only wear it while I am at work, or doing anything. When I'm home I mostly jsut sit around. I hardly use the hand at all, except when on the computer, so I don't need it as much. I wear that ace bandage that the doctor gave me whilst using the computer. It does help, though not nearly as well. I have it off right now. It must have been too tight; my fingers were going numb & they were absolutely freezing. Hooray!

Hooray is my new favourite word. That last one was absolutely dripping with sarcasm too, I might add. At least it's mostly not sore anymore. It just gets tired an awful lot faster than normal & once it's tired, it's a short step to go to throbbing sore. At least it isn't sharp, stabbing pains anymore. That's another thing, apparently I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy either. That could very well be what brought on the 24th's agony. That afternoon, I put the pop order away at work. Lifting those red crates of 24 bottles of pop is fairly heavy lifting. At the time though, I wasn't aware of the fact that lifting was a bad idea. I mean, I made sure to mostly use my left hand & just use the right one for balancing the crates & stuff, but I still had to use it a fair bit. Go figure. So yeah, it's probably my own (unwitting) fault that it got so bad that evening. Ah well, at least I got the problem addressed.

I was reading up on carpal tunnel online too. Apparently it's caused by frequent repetitive movements of the wrist. It's some kind of nerve in the wrist that gets pinched between some kind of muscles or something. http://www.carpaltunnel.com/ explains it pretty well.

Anyway, I just put the wrap back on & sonce I can't no longer move my fingers enough to typ easily, I'm headed out for bed. Not to mention that it is 3:07 am. I should have went to bed hours ago, not stayed up blogging a book. Ah well, dearest My Peeps are now all up to date concerning my life & what all is new with it. That's the main thing I am sure. Anyhow, happy day. I'll talk to you all later I'm sure.

Cheers! VickEMullin
"Women who behave rarely make history." -Unknown