Caught Dead-Handed

This was written in June of 2011. It's the last draft I wrote for this blog before I got too busy writing for other people. My hand turned out to be fine, but it was about 6 months before I got all the feeling and strength back. In February of 2012, I quit my day job and have been writing full-time ever since.

I was thirty years old for a week before I found a way to inure myself by taking a nap.

It was my lunch break at my day job - I work part time at a gear shop to fund my writing - and it was a tough day; it was my first day back from a week off, I was exhausted from the trip, and I almost got into a fight with a customer who yelled at a female employee. Good times.

I walked into the break room, dropped into a chair, and started reading blogs on my iPhone. I woke up 20 minutes later with a numb hand. Odd, but it wasn't a big deal. I fell asleep slouched in the chair with all my weight resting on my left armpit - my arm was draped over the chair.

No big deal - I've done that tons of times. It became a bigger deal an hour later when my hand was still numb and I couldn't hold anything in it. Waking up the next morning without any improvement made it an even bigger deal.

Two hospital visits later, I was sitting in an orthopedic specialists' office.

He had a big grin on his face. "I wish I had an intern in here. This is textbook!"

"I'm so excited for you. Textbook what?

"We call this 'Saturday night palsy," he said. "Happens all the time."

Turns out that we have a bunch of nerves (a cluster, if you will) called the brachial nerve cluster on the inside of our biceps, just a few inches down from the armpit. When people drink - or fall asleep wrong in armchairs - they tend to put their weight on this portion of their arm. That can damage the cluster, leading to weakness, paralysis, and numbness. All temporary, apparently.

The first week or two scared the crap out of me. Couldn't tie my shoes, couldn't write - the first time I went to the clinic, I had to fill out the forms with my pen in my fist like it was a goddamn crayon. And the weakness - I did a strength test with my PT, and my pinch strength on my right hand was 70 pounds, while my crappy left hand was 7 pounds. Full hand grip on the right hand - 160 pounds. Left - 59. This did not bode well for climbing season. And don't even ask me about having to tell people how I hurt myself.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the feeling and strength to come back. It's been about 3 weeks now since "The Incident" and my grip strength is serviceable, if not great, and I've gotten back a decent chunk of the feeling in my hand.