Manual Dexterity

Continuing with my Mad House commitment, here's this week's post.

I can crochet. Well, let me step back a bit. I could crochet, if I so chose to; however, I rarely get more than four or five rows in and, by then, I have usually lost my hook. So the project gets shoved to the side where it either stays, or I eventually donate it to Goodwill in hopes that some poor crocheter out there is looking for a lot project.

I can scrapbook. Well, I've only ever finished two, both of which were dedications to my 2 babies that never made it into this world.

I can make wood do what I want it to do and have made two beautiful pieces of furniture, with more on the way. You definitely need manual dexterity for that job...carpentry.

I'm a writer, but my hands don't do as much writing as they do other things; specifically, the "thing" I will focus on tonight that is much on my mind as of late.

It's getting close to 11 years since the tumor on my spine was found. Right there, a bright white spot on the x-ray, right at the L2 transverse process. Not hanging off like a berry, but muddled in right at the base, the pedicle, of the bone. I was given two options, both based on a biopsy I hadn't yet had. I could wait it out and see if it would grow, requiring monthly scans; or, I could have it immediately removed. Once the biopsy results were in, my choice was down to immediate removal. On April 13th, 2000, I went in for a looooong surgery to remove a piece of my spine and, hopefully along with it, an osteoblastoma. They had to remove the transverse process, there was no way to get the darn thing out without cutting through it. They sent it off to Walter Reed's lab to be labelled as an "Unknown cyst of unknown origin." Classically, it's been labelled an osteblastoma, functionally, it's been labelled the end of my life as I knew it.

Few people know this about me, but I was a runner. Running was very, very hard for me, but I loved it. I also loved walking, hiking, biking, and pretty much anything else that required extensive use of my back. I was also, at one point, a very heavy drinker but, having quit drinking, I had gotten back into running. I even ran a 5K a few months before the tumor was found.

The surgeon who did the surgey "nicked" my sciatic nerve and I have had years of pain from that. The inbalance that comes with the loss of a piece of vertebrae has degenerated my back into that of an 80-year-old. At this point, I have one ruptured disk and 2 bulging discs. If I could lose 80 pounds, my back may not bother me so much, but I'm at a point in my depression where I just can't get myself to expend the energy.

The tumor destroyed a piece of me that I have not, in my depression, been able to get back...that manual dexterity that goes along with broad, strong body movements like running and hiking. I do walk, but it's slow going in the weight department. I have an awesome trainer, but I'm too caught up in my depression to work with him. I have sacrificed my dexterity to a back that is unsuitable to large movements. I've been told time and time again not to pick up anything over 10pounds, that I risk bursting the other two discs...but how can I not jump up, run to my screaming child, and then NOT pick him, or her, up?

My next step is a spinal fusion coming up, most likely, sometime in the new year. I've made my decision after living through years of pain...pain that haunts every waking and sleeping moment and movement. I'm making this choice to get away from the pain meds in hopes that the fusion does the trick.

Manual dexterity...I know what I'll give up for it.