Musings

The Doctor Is In. In Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky, That Is

My recent trip to Indiana to teach for a week at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking coincided with one of the monthly “open houses” at the World Headquarters of Lost Art Press in Ft. Mitchell, KY.  I had a grand time there, visiting with many fellow woodworking enthusiasts.

I was especially delighted to cross paths with Dr. Mike, a specialist in hand and wrist injuries, who has been advising me on my rehabilitation following last year’s broken arm.  The location and severity of the break made its manifestation a wrist and hand issue.  The radius had snapped about an inch above the wrist and the broken-off tip had rotated considerably.  Fortunately the setting went perfectly.  (Note to self: don’t fall onto a stone walkway any more)  The resulting cast was necessarily quite snug to keep everything in order, and the posture of the hand was not straight but rather considerably bent to keep everything in proper alignment during the healing.  One result of this arrangement was that all the swelling was pushed down into my fingers, which for several weeks looked like kielbasa.  As a result of all this, the directed swelling really aggravated the arthritis in my hand, which x-rays confirmed infest every single joint therein.

After getting the cast removed I undertook a rigorous regimen of physical therapy emphasizing flexibility and movement and downplaying the regaining of my hand strength.   I attacked the problem, which seemed to be resistant to my best efforts at resolution.

Enter Dr. Mike.

At last March’s Lie-Nielsen event on Covington KY he examined my arm/wrist/and and declared that I was being too diligent in my exercises; I was working the region so hard I was essentially inflicting as much inflammation as I was alleviating.  He proposed a new exercise routine for me, which I began the next day.  The beneficial results were almost immediate, but still the road to full recovery had many miles to go.  We corresponded regularly as I provided updates and he provided further counsel.

Flash forward to the LAP open house, when he gave an exceeding thorough evaluation of the damaged flipper.  We were both every pleased at the progress, and changed the emphasis to the return of ultra-fine motor skills in the digits.   With a new set of exercises to address this we parted and I have been engaged in additional finger flexibility routines ever since.

At this point the overall status of the ensemble varies on a day-to-day basis of somewhere in the 85%-95%+ range.  My arm bone is fully healed and needs no more thought.  My wrist flexibility as close to 100% of that which was expected.  My finger micro-dexterity is somewhere north of 75% depending on how my arthritis is acting up.  Some days it exceeds 90%.  My hand strength is in the 80-90% range and slowly getting stronger with ordinary shop activities.

I recently wrote a note to Dr. Mike celebrating my use of chopsticks for the first time in over a year.  Indeed I mark the progress by the little things I can do again; remove the gas cap from the car without discomfort, pull the starter cord for the log splitter, handle the chain saw, hand plane and hand saw with impunity.

As the day in Ft. Mitchell wound down the stragglers mostly gathered to watch Chris work on a chair seat.

Finally it was just a handful of us, as we ate pizza and then I hit the road.