"Troy Finally Gets his Vacation" by Troy H. Cheek on Jan 03, 2005

The year of 2005 has arrived and thus begins another year of The View From The Corner, the section of my website in which (among other things) I combine actual events in my life with my weird sense of humor to create a semi-autobiographical wonderland which entertains and amuses all my readers.

Or, at least, so the theory goes.

Judging from the emails I receive, most of you seem to think that the actual events are made up and the literary inventions are real events. You think real people are ficticious and vice versa. This happens often enough that it no longer bothers me. For those who seem to be firmly of the belief that my medical problems are the products of a fevered imagination, you'll no doubt find this next part hilarious.

Towards the end of 2004, I explained that I'd been having some tingling and numbness and pain and weakness in my right hand. I went to my general doctor, fearing this was neuropathy caused by my diabetes. He decided that this wasn't caused by my diabetes, though I had let my diabetes and other medical problems get so far out of control that he couldn't explain why I felt great other than these minor symptoms when by all medical logic I should feel, well, dead.

General doctor sent me to hand doctor, who was a specialist in reconstructive and plastic surgery. I panicked. Then my general doctor explained that no surgery was planned. Doctors who specialize in reconstructive surgery just happen to be experts on how the nerves in the hand work and so are good to consult with in these cases.

The hand doctor also explained that no surgery was planned. We'd try some pills and splints and physical therapy first. If worse came to unexpected worst, in some nebulous future time we might consider the possibility of a very minor procedure.

Oh, and go see this nerve specialist while you're at it. The nerve guy (come to think of it, I was never actually told that he was a doctor) performed a nerve conduction study and sent the results back to the hand doctor.

The hand doctor looked at the results and asked me how soon I could be ready for surgery.

"Surgery?" I choked. "How big a rush are we in, here?"

"Oh, no rush," the hand doctor soothed. "Any time in the next month will be fine."

Urk!

It turns out that my right arm has moderate neuropathy of the ulnar nerve and mild neuropathy of the median nerve. The left arm has minor neuropathy of the ulnar nerve, not enough to consider a problem at this time. The nerve guy had said something about that, but couldn't give me details and told me that my hand doctor would explain it all.

My hand doctor seemed to assume that the nerve guy would explain it all.

The ulnar nerve is the nerve that passes around the outside of your elbow. It's the nerve you hit when you hit your funny bone. It passes through a little channel in the bone called the cubital tunnel. It handles sensory input from the two smallest fingers and the corresponding part of the palm. It also sends control signals to the small muscles of the fingers and is responsible for a lot of the gripping strength of the hand as a whole.

The ulnar nerve can be damaged due to problems with the cubital tunnel. These problems can be caused by accident or injury. Some people are just born with bad tunnels. Injury, illness, or some other condition can cause inflammation of the surrounding tissues which also affects the nerve as it passes through the tunnel. Propping your weight on your elbow can compress the nerve. Sleeping with your arms folded up with stretch the nerve and damage it that way.

The hand doctor isn't sure what caused it in my case, because I've apparently done pretty much everything you can do to damage your ulnar nerve. In fact, I should be in much worse condition than I actually am. Hearing that a second time from a second doctor doesn't make it sound any better, by the way.

In any case, the hand doctor says this little procedure will fix me. It's very minor. Barely qualifies as surgery. He could probably do it in the office under local anesthetic if he thought I could hold still for an hour and a half.

First, he's going to make a short incision, just 10" or so, down the inside of my right arm. Then he's going to flay the muscles away from my bones. Then he's going to work the ulnar nerve out of the cubital tunnel and move it around to the side of the elbow. Then he's going to tie the muscles back down with a couple of layers of dissolving stitches. After he bandages me up from armpit to wrist, he's going to send me home for three days to fester and drain.

And while I'm on the table getting my right arm worked on anyway, he'll open up the carpal tunnel a little to free up the median nerve. The wrist can stand being immobilized better than the elbow can, so he'll probably have that bandaged up for a while longer and wear a wrist brace for a few weeks.

As bad as all that sounds, the hand doctor said that I'll be able to go back to work in as little as two weeks! "Oh, you did say you work in an office, right?"

"No, doctor," I corrected, "I work as a security officer."

"Oh, well, you work dispatching, or sitting in a booth at a gate, or something like that, right?"

"No, doctor. I'm a regular patrol officer when I'm not doing my Technical Specialist thing."

"Oh, well, you don't have to run people down or anything like that, do you?"

"Only a couple or three times a week."

"Oh, well, in that case, you won't be able to return to work for 12 weeks."

Urk!

On the bright side, I just happen to have 16 weeks of vacation and sick time saved up. This is the legacy of working understaffed for over 4 years and never being able to take a decent vacation. I'm sure that I've had as much as an entire week off at some point or another, but I can't for the life of me remember when. What I do remember is not being able to take off a whole day to have a root canal done due to scheduling problems.

The boss offered to create a part-time position for me doing filing and typing, which I can do faster than him even one-handed. Human Resources offered to help me transfer to another department which had some openings. I've even been offered a job working the hospital switchboard until I'm recovered.

And I might do some or all of that. In the meantime, I don't know how bad I'm going to feel for how long, how many pain pills I'm going to be popping like candy, or when I'll be ready for that hour-long drive to work every day.

Besides, have I mentioned that it's been over 4 years since I've had a decent vacation?

Copyright 2005 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to $mail:theview$