Trying Acupuncture for the Final Stretch

It’s been three weeks since I had the surgical pin removed from my right hand. At first, it looked more like a lobster claw than a hand. And the only finger that I could move at all was my thumb.

My daughter Shelli, who is a licensed medical doctor, is also a supporter of alternative therapies. She suggested that acupuncture might help reduce the swelling sooner, which would allow me to regain more flexibility more quickly. I asked my hand doctor about it, but he wasn’t convinced that acupuncture can make a difference so he wouldn’t prescribe it.

That meant that I would have to go outside of my HMO and pay completely out-of-pocket if I decided to pursue that type of treatment.

So I waited. The prescribed once-a-week physical therapy and my diligent daily finger exercises helped. But I continued to have a lot of swelling.

After the Passover Seder, Shelli slept over the house and as she was massaging my hand the following day, she encouraged me to call Frank He, a sports medicine specialist and acupuncturist (http://www.hecares.net) that had treated her for a knee injury a few years ago.

I decided to give it a try.

My first appointment was last Wednesday and I could see an immediate improvement. I was able to move my fourth finger more easily and my knuckles were becoming more visible. I had an appointment with the physical therapist the same day and I told her about the acupuncture. Unlike the doctor, she actually did believe in the efficacy of acupuncture and had considered training for it, herself.

I felt even better about making the decision to pay for acupuncture on my own when the physical therapist told me that I wouldn’t have another appointment until two weeks later and later that same day I got an offer to return to my contract tech writing job on April 12. I need to have my hand fully functioning by that date.

I was able to start typing for the first time with all my fingers—touch typing—for the first time after one visit with Frank. I have told Frank about my deadline and he feels confident that I will be ready.

Passovers Past and Present

Passover is one of my favorite holidays. Not that I’m a big fan of matzoh. And admittedly, it’s a lot if work to prepare for Passover. But I love having the family gather together for the Seder. I love the story telling and singing the songs together,

When I was growing up on the East Coast, the Seder was always held at our house. We didn’t have the biggest house. In fact, we lived in a rented apartment, whereas my cousins lived in large suburban homes with multiple bathrooms and guestrooms that could have more easily accommodated both the Seder and overnight guests. But we had the honor of hosting, because we lived in the same town as Papa, the patriarch of my mother’s family. Papa sat at the head of the table and led the Seders until he passed away when I was a teenager.

After I got married, I never lived in the same area as my parents or my brother. My husband and I lived either in Israel or in California. They moved to Florida. Once or twice, when my parents were still alive, we managed to fly across the country to spend Passover with them and my brother's family. But for most of my married life, we have hosted the Seder at our house.

Often we have twenty-five people or more at the Seder, a combination of family and friends. This year, I had a special challenge, since I’m still recovering from my broken right hand.

It’s hard to cook or serve without a fully functioning right hand. So I pared down the guest list and made it clear that I would need a lot of help. Our three daughters are all grown. Shelli was going to be away traveling on vacation. Orli is married with a 1 ½ year old son and I knew she wouldn’t be able to help much, because my adorable grandson would be needing attention. So I was counting primarily on my husband and my daughter, Keren, to set up the table and serve our somewhat smaller, but still not tiny group of thirteen adults and three small children.

It turned out that we got a nice surprise. Shelli cut her travel short and returned home the day before the Seder. Thus, I had two daughters pitching with the final cooking and setting up. Guests also brought food to share. As usual, we had more than enough to eat and plenty of left-overs.

We didn’t get to go through as much of the Haggadah as we usually do—that’s really a challenge with a toddler at the table!—but we did get through almost all the songs and everybody had a good time.

UPDATE ON MY HAND

I’m also feeling optimistic that my hand will return to normal sometime soon. It's getting more functional in multiple areas. In the kitchen, I can now cut an onion and use scissors. In the car, I can turn the key in the ignition and shift gears with my right hand. And finally, I am beginning to type with all my fingers! Just need to work some more on the strength, so that I can type for longer periods of time. I have started supplementing the once a week physical therapy from Kaiser with private visits to a sports medicine doctor who does acupuncture and therapeutic massage. It's expensive, but I could feel a difference after my first session yesterday. Still have pins in my right arm and have three more follow up sessions to go. Planning to return to work in the middle of the month.

P.S. I am hoping to get a couple of photos of the Seder from the family. Will update the posting when I get them.

Walking in Half Moon Bay

Taking a walk almost always makes me feel better. Particularly when the sun is shining and the weather is temperate – not too hot and not too cold. And I’m fortunate to live in beautiful northern California, an area blessed with lots of days just like that. One advantage of not being able to work just yet is that I get to spend a lot of time outdoors.

Yesterday, Micha got an urge to go to the seashore, so we headed over to Half Moon Bay. It was a lot cooler and breezier over there than it had been in Palo Alto, but we were prepared with sweaters and jackets. Luckily, it wasn’t foggy.

We lived in this area for twenty years before my friend Hanna introduced me to this ridge. Now, it’s one of my favorite spots--with the surf pounding against the rocks below, the fog horns blowing in the distance, and the wildflowers surrounding the trail. Different flowers pop up at different times of year. I don't know their names. One of the many things I could add to the list of things that I should take the time to learn. Yesterday, the most abundant flowers were yellow. I'll post some pictures and maybe one of you can tell me their name.

Trees

I have always loved trees. I love to look at them and to draw them. I can still remember the weeping willow tree that stood across the street from my favorite childhood home and the primitive water color paintings that I created, featuring that very tree.

So it pleases me that the other members of my immediate family feel the same way that I do. None of us has been ardent enough to camp on a tree branch in order to prevent someone from cutting it down. But we do not easily accept the cutting down of trees.

One of our neighbors was angry with us for years, because we refused to cut down a redwood tree on our property at a time that we were making other changes to our house. Our neighbor claimed that the tree belonged in a forest, rather than in someone’s yard. The tree was there when we bought the house, and was probably there long before our neighborhood was built (sometime in the 1960s). Maybe at some time in the more distant past, there had been a small patch of forest here and that tree is one of the few remaining survivors. Our refusal to remove the tree transformed our formerly friendly neighbors into a hostile border.

Last year, our city, which has long had a reputation for respecting and preserving trees, seemed to get caught up in a frenzy of removing mature shade trees and replacing them with little saplings. Some of the trees were lining a major thoroughfare near our neighborhood and I’m proud that my husband initiated a petition to stop the city from proceeding. He was unsuccessful. The city arborists had convinced the majority of people that it was necessary to remove the mature trees in order to resolve a problem with the roots causing the road to buckle.

Most people didn’t get upset until later in the year when the city in one fell swoop removed all the trees on another street, popular for its small sidewalk cafes. It happened during a heat wave. Suddenly, there was no shade. A major outcry ensued.

Still, it seems that more and more trees are meeting an untimely demise.

Some trees are being cut down out of fear. There was a very sad story that made headline news in our area, where a tree on a street in a neighboring city fell down on a car, crushing and killing its occupants. This didn’t happen during a storm. In this case, the tree really was sick and should have been cut down. So now people are feeling hyper vigilant.

Thus, I could understand why the neighbors on the other side of our home might decide that it was prudent for them to remove the tall Douglas fir that stood for so many years in that backyard and graced the view from ours. One of the workers rang our doorbell to apologize for the debris that would be falling in our yard and explained that our neighbors felt the tree was showing signs of leaning.

We hadn’t noticed any leaning, but I would consider it presumptuous to object to removing a tree that my neighbors considered potentially hazardous to their family.

Nevertheless, we could not help but feel sad to see it go – a task that took an entire day.

Our daughter, Shelli, had slept over the night before and woke up to the sounds of the crew sawing off the tree limbs. Her anguish at losing the tree made her feel a desire to be in the midst of trees.

So she decided to delay running errands and suggested taking a hike instead. I was more than happy to comply.

Appreciating Feeling Better

Do you know the feeling that you get when you get well after being sick?

I feel much more appreciative of being able to breathe freely after suffering from a bad head cold, or being able to enjoy a good meal after recovering from a bout of stomach flu.

Since breaking my right hand in early February, I have had to cope for the first time in my life with a longer term impairment. This gives me a renewed appreciation of simple things as I am starting to regain functionality.

I'm even enjoying doing some tasks that I previously considered bothersome chores.

This morning, I actually enjoyed washing the breakfast dishes, feeling the warm, soapy water running over both hands.

Even managed to help prepare dinner tonight. Mostly using my left hand, but with a little help from my right. And I enjoyed doing it.

Not to mention the fact that it is so much easier to eat now that I can hold a fork in my right hand.

Still have a lot of work to do to get the hand fully operational. But it helps to see some progress.

What about you? Have you ever felt this way yourself?

One Day at a Time

Today I reached a milestone. The doctor removed the pin from my broken right hand. I had some anxiety that it would be painful to have the pin pulled out. But that part didn’t really hurt much at all. Just a tugging sensation.

What hurts is the part that comes afterwards, when the doctor says, “Now, try to move your fingers.”

I want to cooperate. I want to get better. But I can’t push past the pain to bend my fingers as he suggests. When he offers to put the splint back on for additional support and protection, I eagerly agree—despite the fact that I was so eager to get the splint off.

I am meeting friends for lunch and I’m not yet ready for my hand to go unprotected into a possibly busy restaurant.

Later, though, in the privacy of my home, I unwrap the elastic bandage and remove the splint myself. Now, my hand is bare except for the bandage covering the spot where the pin was removed. Tentatively, I try again to move my fingers and stretch my hand.

It doesn’t hurt to move my thumb. That finger was furthest from the point of injury and was never in a splint. I can move my index finger a lot. It doesn’t bend on its own, but I can bend it using my other hand. And it doesn’t hurt to do so. I can move my middle finger a little. It is stiffer than my index finger, because it’s closer to the injured area. But, I can bend its knuckles using my other hand. This is better than I could do earlier today, so I feel like patting myself on the back for making progress. I check my pinkie and find it behaves the same. It won’t bend on its own, but it is pliable enough for me to bend it using my other hand.

I’m afraid to try the fourth finger. The fracture was in the fourth metacarpal and my still blue and swollen fourth finger was immobilized for an entire month with a surgical pin inserted from my lowest knuckle down to my wrist. But I try and manage to bend it just a smidgen.

I will try to keep doing this a little at a time. Tomorrow, I can get my hand wet. Thursday I have my first physical therapy appointment.

I don't have any new pictures, so I am going to include a photo of me and Stephanie Bennett Vogt (http://www.spaceclear.com) taken during one of the parties from the Writer's Conference in San Miguel de Allende. Stephanie is the person who inspired me to start writing my blog and I continue to get inspiration and comfort from reading hers. Thanks, Stephanie.

Family and Flowers on My Birthday

I really wanted only one thing for my birthday this year – to be surrounded by my family. It’s somewhat ironic, because if my hand hadn’t been broken the only family that would have been with me for my birthday was my husband, Micha. That had been my original choice when we decided to spend my time off from work on an extended visit to San Miguel de Allende.

But we modified our plans at least a little bit and returned immediately after the Writer’s Conference, arriving home a few days before my birthday. I told both Micha and the girls that I didn’t want to do anything elaborate. I didn’t have any desire to go to a fancy restaurant, didn’t even have any yen for any particular kind of food—other than ice cream cake with chocolate for dessert.

We had someone staying in our house while we were away, so that our 17 ½ year old cat, Mitzi would not be lonely. Mateja, took excellent care of Mitzi and has several more days before she finishes her medical rotation at Stanford and returns to her family. We invited her to join our birthday party and she blended right in. She even gave me a bouquet of flowers. So my house is still full of flowers from my birthday – the mixed bouquet from Mateja, bright yellow and orange long-stemmed tulips from Keren, and an arrangement of orchids from my friend and neighbor, Miri.

The weather was sunny and warm, so we spent a lot of time outdoors, in our backyard and also in the playground with Gali. It was a perfect day.