Slipping Through Her Fingers

No, no, no! Just draw the x-axis straight, I think to myself. Is it really that hard to do?

The frustrated thoughts don’t stop, and I finally just have to say them aloud. Here I am, stuck at the kitchen table, dictating to, while actually trying not to yell at, my mom:

“You know, it wouldn’t take so long to scroll down on the Mac if you just use two fingers, the way everybody else does it,” I tell her. Frustrated, she rolls her eyes. She likes to do it her way.

Two minutes later, I can’t hold myself back. “Wait, stop. Can you move that number a little farther to the right?” I ask, hoping she’s not mad at me for being ‘too picky’. “No, even farther. No, Mom, even farther.” I like to do it my way.

That’s how every math problem is done. I am not supposed to write, type, play viola or play piano right now. I tell everybody it’s tendonitis, but honestly the doctors don’t know. The most specific they can get while still being honest is an “overuse injury”, brought on by late nights finishing my Conjuguemos, among other things.

Tendonitis is “an inflammation or irritation of a tendon”, according to webmd.com. In simpler terms that apply to my situation, it means that both of my hands ache deeply, almost like calves would be the day after a long run, from my elbow to my fingers.

I dictate homework to my mom, my sister, my dad, friends, my next door neighbor, the kid who lives down the street. Pretty soon, my family is going to get so tired of being subjected to constant nitpicky comments, they’ll refuse to write for me anymore. Who am I kidding, my mom is already tired of listening to my OCD comments.

Dictating your math homework, number by painstaking number, is something I hope none of you have to go through. It’s slow. It’s mindnumbing. And nobody understands what the heck you’re trying to say by “double parentheses, then switch the x and y”. It’s definitely an exercise in giving up control.

And if you’re a bit of a control freak like me, giving that up is more painful than the physical pain.

So, school is tough. Friends send me all my notes over text and in low-quality iPhone photos. Bye-bye, tidy notebook with notes perfectly arranged. Worksheets that everyone else completes at school, I have to do at my house. I do them over voice-to-text on my laptop.

The hardest part is dictating tests to lab aides, people who I usually have never met and have to try to express math, aloud, to.

***

Of course, the first thing we did when I told my mom that my hands hurt was go to the doctor. The first doctor we saw gave me a prescription for twice the daily dose of ibuprofen and told me to wear casts for a month. It didn’t work. With their next step being a steroid shot, my terrified mom practically dragged me out of there. Because it was only the first month of treatment, my parents were trying to convince me that everything would still work out. I wasn’t so sure.

The stream of doctors we saw and all the treatments I tried after that seemed to be never-ending. Chiropractors, orthopedic surgeons, and finally ending with an occupational therapist. I tried deep tissue massages, deep needling, and a steady diet of supplements like Magnesium and Vitamin D.

The occupational therapist, who is helping me today, gave me stretches to do for my hands and exercises to strengthen my back. It almost seems like I’m not doing anything. In my mind, I’m not sure if doing a couple of stretches can help me, and if they can, it sure is happening slowly.

***

Tendonitis may sound bad, but the inability to do certain things is far worse than the pain. Nobody can see it because I don’t wear casts or braces. It isn’t completely impossible for me to write or type either, but when I do I’m usually in pain. But the consistency and seemingly never-ending situation is extremely frustrating.

I know that going through this experience is supposed to make me learn things. To make me look at myself and say, “Wow, I am a little bit of a control freak” and to learn how to fix that. To look at the future, the unknown, with more hope and less negativity.

I don’t know when my hands are going to be better. I don’t know if they are improving or getting worse, because sometimes they feel great and sometimes, they just don’t. I know I’m supposed to be an optimist. Supposed to convince myself that I’m improving. Supposed to ignore the bad days and focus on the good ones.

Maybe if I focus on the good days and think the optimistic thoughts, it will show in my body. My hands will improve. I can play piano again, for as long as I want. No more pain. That’s the dream.

But it seems like just that: an unachievable dream. To me, it’s a lot easier to think of the worst possible situation: I can never use my hands again. Is that likely to happen? No. Is it even a possibility? I’m not entirely sure. But that’s all that’s running through my mind.

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