Friday, May 3, 2013

My Wrist

I haven't really written much about it here, but as some of you know my wrist has been hurt for quite a while now. Nearly nine months ago my wrist started bothering. I'm not 100% sure what caused the pain initially, it could have been the way my mouse and computer were set up. At first I basically just ignored it figuring it would go away in a few days or weeks. But as it got worse I saw a doctor in Beijing. The doctor thought that it was Tendonitis and suggested some stretches and rest. Over the time since then it's gotten better and worse from time to time. I have some pet theories about why, but I don't really know. About a month ago I finally saw a wrist specialist in Hong Kong. He took an MRI to see if there was any serious problem in my wrist. The good news was that the MRI didn't show anything serious that would require surgery. The bad news was that it didn't really show exactly what was wrong. The doctor gave me a shot of cortisone, just like ailing baseball players get, but it hasn't helped much so far. I've done what the doctor recommended but my wrist just doesn't seem to get better.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm in crippling pain or anything. My wrist is just sort of sore all the time, or at least a lot of the time. I take ibuprofen sometimes which helps, though there's only so much of that stuff you can take. My real concern though is that it will get worse when I start grad school and I have to write all the time. Typing isn't that bad actually. It doesn't feel good on my wrist but there are things that bother me a lot more. I'm just worried that when I have to do a lot more of it than I have to do now that I will be in a lot of pain. Instead of just being excited to start grad school I've been pretty anxious because I'm worried about my wrist acting up more and more. It's not that it would be painful enough to stop me now, it hurts but I can deal with it. I'm basically worried that it'll get worst when I have to write all the time. Writing with a pen is actually a lot worse for me right now, but everyone seems to use laptops in school these days anyways.

Well that's what's going on with my wrist. I'm going to try some physical therapy, and I'm still hoping the cortisone shot I got will end up having a bigger effect, but there doesn't seem to be too much more I can do. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.