The Painful Saga of my Wrist

This is the story of my wrist. It came into existence 22+ years ago…let’s not go back quite that far.


I first injured it about a year ago when I was organizing (my favorite pastime) lots of big bins in a storage room. I found it odd that my wrist hurt, but being the good EMT that I am (or was), I kept it wrapped for a couple of days, and then it was fine.


A couple weeks later I hurt it again, wrapped it, and then it was fine. A couple weeks later I did it again, and it hurt worse than every before, so I decided to go to the Doctor. Technically I could have got that covered since the initial injury was a work, but I never reported it and my supervisor wasn’t even in the country at the time. Besides, it’s just a sprain or strain, so who cares? It’s no big deal...or so I thought.


The Doctor gave me a wrist brace and said it could be a strain injury or tendonitis (which takes a very, very long time to heal). And if it still hurt in 2 weeks, I was supposed to come back in. 13 days later, my wrist finally stopped hurting. So I didn’t go back to the doctor. Even though 2 days after that I injured it again, working in the dining hall and trying to cut veggies while wearing the wrist brace. I was very ticked off about that.


After that I was very careful about what I did with my hands. I stopped crocheting :( and tried not to do anything dumb. For the next 3 months I’d occasionally hurt my wrist and wear the brace for a day two, and then it was fine.


The last time I wore the wrist brace was the end of October, when my team was in Mexico building a house with Homes of Hope. Don’t worry, I didn’t do any lifting or painting (cuz receptive motion gets painful after a while). I was the photographer and safety manager. I made sure that no one did anything stupid, and made sure they all drank lots of water. I was so efficient at my job, that we ran out of water-bottles. I even got the wear the lovely “safety manager” vest. Aren’t we so cute?

Wait, look closer. Do you see that?
That is not dirt. That is a permanent tan line. So now you see why I didn’t wear the wrist brace after that day.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to wear the wrist brace, because I made sure not to do anything that could possible injure my wrist. Until 2 days ago...

I'm selling everything I own and then moving to Idaho. The people who bought my dresser came to pick it up, and being the nice people that we are, Mom and I carried it up-stairs from my room in the basement.

Then I had pain shooting from my wrist to my elbow. Followed by a warm feeling and then a tingling sensation. Aside from the pain, the most annoying thing is that the side of my hand (below my pinky) turns green and looks bruised. I find that odd.

So if you see me and my wrist is wrapped, you’ll know why…