By the time you read this, my new thumb joint and I should be on the road to recovery after out-patient surgery. (Dig into the gory details by searching for “CMC arthritis.”)
One of the causes of this particular injury is being female and over forty: check. Another is wear and tear, likely exacerbated by all of the wire (and rope) I spliced in my twenties and thirties. I’m very right-hand dominant, so it’s not really a surprise that my left thumb is still (dumb and) working fine.
I first noticed the pain and declining grip strength about four years ago, and as it gradually worsened I tried all of the less invasive fixes: occupational therapy, various braces, steroid shots. By last May I was either avoiding the most thumb-aggravating activities (gardening, sewing, downward-facing dog) or in pain for a few days afterward. And while I was still able to enjoy racing Snipes and wingfoiling, rolling sails and donning wetsuits grew more and more painful.
Everyone I asked who’d had a similar problem said “just get the surgery,” but I didn’t want to lose the summer. Instead I started mentally preparing for a physically limited fall/winter—and searching for a well-respected hand surgeon who could build Thumb 2.0.
Luckily I found one locally who understood my priorities, and she described the process (a trapeziectomy) with hand-drawn sketches that were pleasantly personal. After removing the small bone at the base of my thumb joint, she described the new cushion that would fill in that gap: a coiled-up tendon from my forearm (there are two). After a month or so in a cast and a few more months of occupational therapy, Thumb 2.0 should be (almost) as strong and agile as the original model. We set a date, October 20.
By the end of August, I was starting to drop things—including the tiller extension, causing a memorable crash tack on the last day of the Snipe North Americans. So the timing was right, and Tuesday’s surgery was apparently quite successful—thanks in part to the hundreds of times she’s fixed this problem before.
It will be a few weeks before Thumb 2.0 can type again. Since I have no idea how well my dumb left hand will capture all the thoughts and ideas that usually pass through both sets of fingers, I’ve cleared my work schedule and teed up blogs for the next several Thursdays. With luck, you shouldn’t notice any difference.
And I can still read your comments… so feel free to leave one below, especially if you’ve ever gone through something like this! Either way thanks for reading; it’s what keeps me inspired to continue this weekly blog.
See you next Thursday.