Temporary Southpaw Eve

Just to bring folks up to date, I have moderate carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand. Some days I have no problems but, more typically, if I do something that stresses the base of my hand (e.g., pushing a lawn mower, riding a conventional bike, shoveling snow) my hand goes numb. Sometimes it’s only a finger (usually the middle finger) or two; other times, like during today’s ride on The Tank, my whole hand just kind of checks out.

The nerves in the hand are extensions of nerves that pass through a structure called the carpal tunnel at the base of the underside of the hand. The tunnel is capped by a ligament. When the ligament gets tight or inflamed, it impinges on the nerves leading to the hand causing the symptoms. If left untreated, the condition can become constant and painful. Typically the condition is caused by repetitive stress, like riding a bike a bazillion miles.

Tomorrow morning I will be undergoing endoscopic carpal tunnel release surgery on my right, dominant hand. The surgery is low risk and should take no more than 15 minutes. (For reference sake, this is about as long as each of my cataract surgeries.) The procedure is pretty straightforward. I will be given mild sedation (comparable to my cataract surgeries or my colonoscopy) and a local anesthetic in the area of my hand and wrist where the surgeon will be working. The surgeon will make a small (less than an inch wide) incision in the underside of my wrist just below my hand. He then will insert an endoscope into the slit and, using a tiny camera, maneuver it into position beneath the ligament. Once in place, he will sever the ligament using a surgical blade inside the endoscope. After he removes the endoscope, he’ll clean the wound with some saline, stitch the incision, and bandage the area.

After the surgery my job is to ice the area intermittently and to keep the wrist above my heart to promote healing. After three days, the surgeon’s bandage will come off and I will replace it with a Bandaid. In one week I go back to have the surgeon assess my progress. During this period, I am prohibited from raising more than five pounds with the hand. He said that I should be able to ride my conventional bike after a week. I think that’s pretty optimistic but we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, Big Nellie and I will be hanging out in the basement.

In preparation for the surgery I’ve been trying to get some minor tasks out of the way. I went to the pharmacy to get my post-op medications (anti-inflamatories, pain killers, and anti-nausea drugs). This was the first time I used my new Medicare D insurance and I shocked at the cost. My out-of-pocket expense for the three post-op medications was less that $3. (I am not making this up.) I also refilled my asthma maintenance medicine. It is $20 cheaper per month than my old insurance. My asthma rescue inhaler cost only $5. Dang.

Since I won’t be able to ride The Mule for a week anyway, I spent the last week riding it daily, until I reached 78,000 miles on the odometer. Then I drove to Bikes at Vienna and handed over my steed to mechanic Beth for some TLC. I told her about the surgery and she suggested a more cushiony bar tape that should help my hand over the coming weeks.

While we were chatting, Beth told me about a friend who had the surgery about eight years ago and said that it was a total success. Joan, a reader whom I met in Wyoming on my 2022 bike tour, told me that she had carpal tunnel release surgery on both wrists after riding the grueling Paris-Brest-Paris randonneuring event years ago. She, too, had excellent results. While waiting for her wrists to heal, she trained for a marathon (because she is an athletic beast!).

I’ve been spending much of the rest of my time doing small tasks that I’d rather not deal with using my left hand. These include changing the water filter in my refrigerator, installing new wiper blades on my car (the rubber on the old ones was disintegrating!), pumping up the tires on my bikes, and doing laundry.

I hope to post an update about my progress a few days after the surgery.

In unrelated news, during my ride today I passed a man mowing his lawn. I think he takes this Groundhog Day thing way too seriously.