Oh woe is me! I sit here feeling sorry for myself as I clock up 74 days as a single-handed lady.
I laugh now as I read the previous post. Only a few days after writing that my life was disrupted by #CarpalTunnelGate and I discovered that the pain and limited mobility in my hands was not arthritis.
It all began when I started working from home on Tuesday 24 March (actually, it all began a lot earlier than this year but I was none the wiser). In an effort to stave off the crippling nocturnal numbness in my arms, which I thought was a pinched nerve in my neck and which I attributed to my new home office setup, I started using a foam roller to stretch and massage my spine. After about five weeks of doing this (albeit, to no avail) I slipped off the foam roller and my backside connected with my left wrist. Crack! At the time all I felt was discomfort, rather than pain. Two days later I felt a searing jolt down my ulna and I was unable to rotate my wrist. Melbourne was in the thick of COVID-19 restrictions and so I had a telehealth call with one of the GPs at my local clinic. She instructed me to immediately attend Sandringham Hospital’s emergency department. This was Sunday 3 May. Fast forward 74 days and I now have a diagnosis of acute bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome, have undergone surgery on my left hand, and then subsequently been diagnosed with a triangular fibrocartilage complex tear that should have been diagnosed on 3 May.
The events of May and June hang in a haze of opioid painkillers, not that they were particularly successful in managing the pain. Misdiagnoses, ineffective medical care, and poor pain management by my original GP clinic have delayed my recovery. When I realised the local GP team was just letting me languish, I took control and gave myself a crash course in hand anatomy, found a brilliant specialist hand surgeon, hand therapist and a new GP. The surgeon operated on me within 24 hours of our first consultation, 3 weeks after my visit to hospital.
My saviours during these horrendous 74 days have been Mischa, my rescue cat and DragonDictate my dictation app.
Anyhow, not long after #WFH I saw an advertisement to adopt a rescue cat. And without much further thought I submitted an application to adopt her. Within no time the rescue group had selected me to become this cat’s new servant! I was immediately drawn to Mischa because her story reminded me of my now departed Pablo (yes, named after Neruda, because at the time I was reading a book of his sonnets). Both had been alley cats and lived on the streets. The following day, I arrived at the rescue centre and saw my tiny, frightened Mischa. She was huddled in a corner with another black cat who was hissing aggressively and displaying an evil-looking set of fangs. Mischa, on the other hand, just looked up at me in total silence, her pupils dilated, looking absolutely terrified. Fast forward 74 days and Mischa is well and truly settled in at The House of Two Cats Rehabilitation Centre — because, of course, we are both in rehab. Mischa has just completed Living with Humans 101 and I am undergoing Intensive Hand Therapy for Single-Handed Ladies and Pain Management: Post-Oxycodone. I have just signed up Mischa for Living with Humans 102 (a.k.a. For Pete’s sake, please let Catherine cuddle you; her life has been devoid of physical contact for four months). Mischa has been a gift. She has been a blessed distraction from the pain and discomfort of the last few months. It has been wonderful watching her come out of her shell (and the dark corner of the spare room where she spent the first two weeks of her life with me!). She has blossomed and physically transformed into a absolutely spectacularly beautiful looking cat — so different from the tiny, skinny little thing I picked up from the rescue centre. We still have a long way to go. I can’t get within a metre of her without her scampering away. The closest she ever gets to me is when I go to the toilet! On one occasion I inadvertently left the toilet door slightly ajar and she pushed it open and sat at my feet, completely enthralled! Now I make sure that the door is securely closed only to discover that she is sitting outside the door monitoring my every movement in the water closet.
My other saviour has been DragonDictate. As a prolific writer (not yet published) being able to touch type at 120 words per minute is a valuable skill. When #CarpalTunnelGate rose its ugly head I panicked. How on earth was I ever going to be able to transfer the contents of my head onto paper? Enter DragonDictate! There are two versions of the app, Dragon Anywhere for mobile devices, and the full industrial strength DragonDictate for laptop and desktop devices. I have installed both of them. However, I prefer Dragon Anywhere for my writing. It means that the second I get a thought or idea I simply grabbed my mobile phone or iPad and immediately start talking and my words are transformed with amazing accuracy. As a result my writing output has trebled! (Clearly there is no evidence of this here — I have yet to transfer most of it). And, being a tragic Game of Thrones fan, it is only appropriate (and perhaps expected) that Drogon is the nickname I have given DragonDictate.
So, Mischa and Drogon have kept me relatively sane and preoccupied with matters other than the pain and discomfort in my hands. However, there is one other item that has been with me since I was born and which has also given me great comfort during this period: Leila Clothier’s piano. That is another story for another time.
Cate Uí Néill 