Annoying!

Fortunately, I've moved past the first painful stage of my recovery.  The pain has diminished to a dull ache that is well-managed with ibuprofen.  I'm glad that I'm no longer needing the pain pills that were prescribed for me.

Now I'm in the middle of an extreme annoyance phase.

Next time you get dressed, don't use your dominant hand at all.  Next time you use the restroom at work, don't use your dominant hand at all.  Next time you type an email, eat your lunch, prepare your dinner, brush your teeth, take a shower, fill out a credit card receipt, hug your loved ones, or drive your car, don't use your dominant arm at all.  It doesn't seem so hard until you actually try it.  It's annoying, but it has helped me appreciate how well two hands work together.  It has also helped me take pride in seemingly small accomplishments.

Other annoying things:

• Cramping in my hand and wrist because they've been completely immobilized--Hands like to move!
• Itching where I can't scratch
• Sleeping poorly because every time I try to roll over, the brace either gets in the way or my arm starts to ache because it's not in one of the exactly two possible comfortable positions that exist for me right now
• Twitching in the muscles attached to the repaired tendon--OUCH!
• Not having a good story for why I'm in a splint--It's freaking TENNIS ELBOW!  How mundane!
• Having everything take four times as long for me to do even though my mind is still going full speed, causing life to be in constant slow motion
• Smelly hand smells coming from the hand I can't wash very well--thank heavens for hand sanitizer!

So I'm constantly tired, achy, smelly, and annoyed.  I'm not the most fun person to be around these days, and I don't like that either!

So I'm counting down the slow-motion days until my follow-up appointment when they remove this "Do not open:  No user-serviceable parts inside" brace from my arm and put a new brace on that, will likely be equally uncomfortable and highly annoying.  But I'll be able to remove it once in a while and at least I can remove some of the "smelly" from the list of my current undesirable traits.

Seven days and counting...  in...... sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooow......... mooooooooooooootion...........................