Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Yes, it's happened yet again! I have a tentative diagnosis for yet another condition to add to my ever growing list.

I went to the OT at the hospital, yet another hour spent feeling less than optimistic about not only the present but the future.

The OT was thrilled and pleased about my 'supposed' marked improvement of my hand strength. I now according to measurements taken today have 150% on one hand and 100% on the other of increase of strength in my hands. That said, I had less than 10% three weeks ago at initial assessment. So to put into perspective I have around 25% - 30% on the minimum strength I should have in my hands for a female of my age.

She was shocked at how less than impressed about this improvement. As my pain in my hands and wrists has gotten more than 200% worse than it was previously there is also the fact that over the past few weeks I have begun to seriously drop objects I'm attempting to pick up or hold. As well as experiencing a lot of difficulty actually gripped any object, painfully difficulties, all in all for me personally on a day to day basis I have less functionality in both my hands regardless of what strength tests results I have. That only shows that when I squeeze as hard and as painfully as possible on the grippers I can on the 3 occasions I get each hand tested manage to hold the grip at a certain strength.

It's the same as saying that my PT can manipulate my shoulders to complete certain movements I can't personally do so repetitively. Unless I can do an action several times in row within a specific period of time being able to have another person manipulate said joint once under their own strength these results have to real impact on my daily functionality when all is said and done.

It seems the added pain and the dropping problems I am experiencing, as well as the lack of sleep I am getting due to severe hand pain, is caused by something called Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I was given two sets of splints for my hands/wrists, one to use during the day when doing any activity where I need to grip anything, so basically most of the time, and another to wear at night.

I have to come back in 3 to 4 weeks, I'm not sure when as the receptionist had left for the day when I got back to the entrance so I had to put my sheet with the time frame from the OT through the gap between the closed windows and hope the receptionist gets it OK tomorrow and sends out an appointment to me. The OT said although she wants to see me within the month it will probably 5 to 6 weeks as she's booked solid for the next month.

I'll have to stop here for now as even with my hand splints on my hands and wrists are becoming very painful, too painful to continue on for now. I'll post tomorrow about my next step in the shower saga, it's not good news at all!!

Camera Here

Well the Kodak pocket (handheld) camcorder I bought arrived today, along-with the tripod I bought but the memory card I ordered at the same time has only just now been dispatched from the Jersey 'partner' of Amazon and estimated delivery not till Saturday at the earliest. As the internal memory in video mode is only 12 seconds - yes you read right seconds, not minutes - I can't really test it properly until the sdhc card arrives.

I've completely charged the device which took around 3 hours to do roughly, set all the relevant details into the settings and checked it sits on the tripod correctly. But unfortunately 12 second recordings can't really allow you proper testing time.

So my practice with my camera is on hold till the 8GB SDHC card I bought with the camera arrives from IndigoStarfish. Something I've found with this 'partner' company is that any orders sent to them even when an item is in stock takes at least 24 to 48 hours to be dispatched and several days to actually arrive. Rather false advertising to say next day or 2 day delivery on items farmed out to them on the order pages.

But nothing to be done for that. The price alone for the right class of card, and avoiding buying a cheap knock off from a less than scrupulous seller, I figure waiting 4 days at least for the card from Amazon themselves is better than chancing spending the same price on what could possible not to be the correctly provided card type or size. Something I've seen happen to many people buying memory either through sellers or on ebay.

I got a month before I'm due back at the PT and if I haven't deteriorated, stayed the same or even slightly improved, the PT says he will discharge me from regular check-ups for now with the exercises I have been given for my shoulders.

PT today

Well I have my PT appointment in less than 2 hours time which marks my first of two therapist appointments this week. Tomorrow I have another therapy appointment at the main hospital which coincidentally charges for parking in the disabled car park. That's if I manage to get one of the limited disabled spaces as my appointment is at 3.15pm just around the beginning of visiting hours so there is a massive increase in demand for these parking spaces at that time of the afternoon. Originally I had a 2.45pm appointment which meant I would have to be there not long after 2pm, an hour before visiting starts, that was more likely to have an disabled space at this time. Unfortunately my appointment was put back two days and moved half an hour later.

I will have to arrive even earlier than I would normally need tomorrow in  case I have to park out-with the disabled area, generally prior to receiving my first blue badge I generally had to park at the farthest out of the car-parks our hospital has and walk into the main entrance from there. At that time it took me around 15 minutes (originally) to about 30 minutes that it was taking me to get to the hospital itself prior to getting my first badge through.

So fingers crossed I will get a disabled parking bay tomorrow as I have a long enough walk in from the entrance to the PT department and another from the reception to the OT's office.

As my hands are beginning to hurt again and I need to try to eat something for lunch and take my second doses of medication prior to leaving for my appointment at around 2.30pm I'll sign off here.

Wish it was Friday

I really wish it was Friday already, I can tell you, I've got the Physiotherapist tomorrow at 10 to 3 in the afternoon, this time only 2 weeks between appointments. I've always thought that stupid, given my degenerative condition not much improvement can happen in barely 2 weeks. I've had no real improvement since my initial assessment in December so shortening my appointment from 3 weeks to 2 weeks wasn't a welcome move for me. Especially given it's the day next to my Occupational Therapist's appointment at the other larger hospital which is on Thursday (changed from Tuesday/Today) at 3.15pm. Also that one means paying parking to park in disabled area if I can get a spot then as this is smack dab the start of afternoon visiting hours which I know is hard to next to impossible to get a disabled spot due to the major influx of visitors for the start of visiting time.

As for the Physiotherapist deliberately making my next appointment the day after (at that time) my OT appointment for some reason which I don't look forward to at all. At least in January I had about a week long grace period to recover from my OT assessment till my PT appointment. Any appointment, but most especially one to the hospital given the long journey and long walk into the PT department, is exhausting for me not to forget painful as well, so I like some recovery time between them to y'know recover!

So needless to say I will be glad to see Friday arrive, and fingers crossed - if I could manage to cross my fingers which I can't currently given the degeneration in them - that they go back to not separate weekly, or at least a day or two grace between them and more importantly back to three week intervals at least.

If nothing else the cost of travelling to both hospitals on a fortnightly basis and any parking charges is a good reason to want them spaced further apart both in appointments and from each other.

Confused

So my Dad has been speaking to relatives who know of disabled people who have had walk in showers in upstairs bathrooms and can't figure out how the OT told this morning that they don't.

Leaving me with two options, move house to a place where there is a downstairs bathroom or attempt to get planning permission from the council to install one. Both very expensive options that are beyond our grasp.

I believed a split level shower is just a fancy say of saying walk in/sit down shower in one of those little cubicle's you see in all the advertisements.

So, I'll just have to see what my OT @ the hospital says. Maybe she'll know how a 'split level shower' is different from a walk in shower that has been installed in many an upstairs bathroom in my area according to those who actually had it done or know someone who has.