Bad Hands

That's what we used to say about someone who couldn't catch a ball, or fumbled with everything he tried to pick up.  

"He's got the bad hands,"  or "He's got stone hands,"  or sarcastically, when a member of the opposing team dropped a pop-up or fumbled the basketball out of bounds,  "Good hands there, Sport!"

I always thought I had pretty good hands.  I could shoot a basketball fairly well, and could catch a pop foul with the old catcher's mitts we used to have.   No more, though.  I've "got the bad hands" myself now.  I don't mean I can't catch a pop-up.  Last one I caught was at old Atlanta Stadium about 15 years ago.  Rafael Belliard popped it up, and we were in the third or fourth row behind the tarp down the first base line.  I had a glove, it came straight for me, and I stood up and made a two hand catch.  I wasn't about to let it pop out of the glove.   I had that drilled into me early by my Daddy, my Uncle Bill, Sandy, and Coach Carter.

What I mean by bad hands is that they hurt.  Sometimes they ache like a toothache.   I suspect some of those ball games I played, both baseball and bounce ball, have something to do with it.   No telling how many times I jammed my thumbs and fingers.   They call the catcher's equipment "the tools of ignorance,"  and now I know why.  

I had carpal tunnel surgery in each hand a few years back.  I waited too late, and have regained only part of the feeling in my fingers.  The surgery did get rid of the pain I had at night, waking with my hands cramping, asleep, and aching at the same time, if you can imagine it.   Now, some of my fingers are aching in the joints and locking up in a condition my orthopedic surgeon calls "trigger finger."  He has given me cortisone shots twice, and they are only temporary relief.  Besides, the shots themselves hurt like rip.    He says he can go in and snip the sheath that the tendons travel through and relieve the restriction, thus doing away with the inflammation and pain.   I watched the operation on youtube.  It looked like about a five minute procedure per finger.  I need it on two fingers, my actual trigger finger and third finger on my right hand.  It looks like a simple operation.  Katie said she believes she could do it.  I'm scheduled for the surgery next Friday.  It is done in the office.

About 10 days ago my left wrist and thumb started aching and popping when I moved my thumb.   Turns out this is something called De Quervains Tendinitis, or Tendinosis.  Again, it has something to do with a restricted and inflamed tendon.  The Doc and the PA told me last week that a cortisone shot should clear it up.  I had the shot, but it is worse now, if anything.  It is painful to grasp anything with the thumb.  Holding a steering wheel makes it hurt.  Something as simple as pulling up your pants, or grasping something between your thumb and index finger is painful.  

Hopefully, I can get these things fixed in the near future.  I have to remind myself that there are a lot of people with much worse maladies, and that I really should be ashamed for complaining.  I am old, after all, and should expect a few aches and pains.

I just hope I don't need to hit somebody with a balled up fist, or catch any foul balls any time soon.  I'm not sure I could "hand"le it.