Last March, almost over night, my right hand started falling asleep all the time.  It woke me several times each night.  My fingers felt odd, like something was off, out of joint.  I wondered what was happening to my hand.  I need my hands.  I stitch, I type, I pull weeds.  It was all feeling wrong.

Then during our General Conference broadcast, on Saturday April 2nd, I was listening, and enjoying the discourses, thinking, “I have no burning questions, or answers to listen for, I am content.  I’m just going to enjoy the words this weekend.”  Then in the middle of a talk, these words came into my mind:  “Look up Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.”  I was taken by surprise–there was nothing the speaker said that had anything to do with my hand.  I immediately googled “carpal tunnel” and read the symptoms.  I had them all.

Shortly after that I made an appointment to see an orthopedic hand doctor.  He ran some simple tests, determined it was carpal tunnel syndrome.  He sent me to a neurologist who ran shocks down my arm to my fingers (not pleasant) and he confirmed the problem.

The doctor told me I had two options:  live with the problem, or have surgery to fix it.  After living with it a few more months, I was ready for a fix.  This last week I had the surgery.  Now I am healing and slowly typing again.

I’ll have 2 weeks with my hand wrapped.

The incision is about 1″ long.  They went into my palm and cut the ligament that runs across the base of my palm from left to right.  That will relieve the pressure on the nerve running into my hand and fingers.  I watched lots of YouTube videos of the surgery to see what it would look like.  The ligament is left hanging, cut.  Before the surgery, I asked the doctor what would become of that cut ligament.  Was it not needed for my hand to work?  He said that’s a question I’ll have to ask our Creator someday.  He said in 17 years of doing primarily this surgery, he’s never known a hand not to work because that ligament is cut.

Here’s what the incision looked like after 1.5 weeks:

I like that the life line on my palm is now a bit longer!

Here’s what it looked like after pulling the stitches out at 2 weeks:

I am so happy my hand is healing and will be back to normal soon.  You realize what a gift your dominant hand is when you can no longer use it.  I’m grateful that when I wear out my hands, they can be fixed.