My ouches. Let me show you them.

[desperance]

If I were a more organised man, I might very well make a list of those things I can and - rather more importantly - cannot do.

It's surprising - to me, at least - how swiftly disability creeps up.
Two weeks of little use, and I've lost a significant amount of movement in the thumb. That'll come back, I am assured, with exercise and massage and such.

What's more significant at the moment is the list of things that pain prevents. Some are obvious: if I still smoked, no way could I use a cigarette lighter (tho' I always preferred matches anyway). Some are unexpected. Most important lesson today: I cannot - I can not - tuck my shirt into my trousers. If I want to seem neat, the only way is to unbuckle the belt, unbutton the jeans and enfold the shirt-tails lovingly. The traditional jabbing motion, thrusting the hand down within the waistband? Is ... ill-advised. Extremely. I would never have figured that out; some things you have to learn by doing. And then by swearing blisteringly for some minutes after.

Comments

lest you discover these things for yourself

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Let me warn you about chopsticks, scissors, pliers, and putting on gloves (Tight gloves, or stiff ones, are especially bad. If your thumb stays uncooperative into cold weather, you may want some oversize mittens.)

[freda-writes.livejournal.com]

Hope the hand heals soon!

Re: lest you discover these things for yourself

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ack! Thank you! Chopsticks will be a problem, if I can't use them comfortably - but happily I can use them left-handed at a pinch. Scissors I am already eyeing askance; gloves I hadn't even thought of. Sigh. Just as the weather turns chilly...

Re: lest you discover these things for yourself

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I usually work around the scissors problem by cutting with a razor blade. (Though it was rather mortifying when the remote preschooler was learning to use scissors and getting frustrated. She handed me the little safety scissors and said, "You do it," the way she does when crayons or puzzles won't do what she wants. Her daddy, who loves me, and is sometimes more concerned with my health than I am, took the scissors out of my hand and said, "No, sweetheart. Aunt Adrian can't cut." I hate it that the 3-year-old is more competent than I am. But I digress.)

Big mittens solve the handwarming problem pretty well for me. So do those extremely lightweight gloves made of very stretchy acrylic. Supermarkets here sometimes sell them to people caught with no gloves--they're quite cheap, and velcro or cats will unravel them fairly easily.