How I Became a Science Experiment / Cyborg.

And Why You Should Love Your Arms

My hand hurts! Stinging, burning, ache of an arm. My right arm throbbing, I drop my coffee cups or pretty much anything I try to carry. I am in so much pain when I carry anything in my dominate hand I end up crying in front of people.

I hate crying in front of people.

It wasn’t always like this, I wasn’t always afraid I had some kind of neurological problem that made my hand go cold on the inside, that made my arm throb and burn. I could carry stuff in my right hand without dropping it. My limb did not hang useless, motionless and heavy from my exhausted shoulder.

I had two working arms and I liked them very much… probably ungratefully so.

I work with my hands. I need both of them. When this all started 4 years ago, I had no idea that the small pains I felt would lead to a full year of wondering if I would ever be able to type, play my piano, play my guitar (badly), paint, play with horses or most importantly hug my son the same way ever again. Three years of intermittent weirdness, pain and burn fed into:

A full year of scientific “medical” experimentation that ended with a major surgery to repair my arm by sawing it in half.

As I said, I use my hands a bunch and I like them. Since the onset pain was mild and intermittent, it seemed reasonable to think I had some sort of arthritis in development — my dad and several other family members had arthritis — ruled that in from the moment I bought my first brace at Walgreens.

Also, arthritis gloves. Had lots of those. Went to the doctor in year 1 after wearing the brace, getting better and then having another bout with the ouch. General Practitioner said maybe carpal tunnel or a pinched nerve in the shoulder. On again off again, each time I saw the doctor he said, it was probably carpal tunnel or a pitched nerve in my shoulder. He told me to brace it, let it rest and if it didn’t get better we’d do an MRI.

Fast forward two years later and my symptoms start changing. It took longer to feel better, the tingling started higher up the arm, my hand wasn’t just cold from the inside, it was also splotchy, red and swollen. That’s when the migraines started.

WTF?

Somehow the migraines became a higher priority. Doc and I decided it was time I did the first MRI. On my head.

Suspicions confirmed. The girl has a brain.

Nothing wrong with it either, aside from the fact that it’s kinda small — but she’s kinda small so that’s alright — her brain is perfectly proportionate (more on this later).

One brain MRI down, no root cause found for the migraines or the weird arm business. Even though the pain was changing, it wasn’t constant and the gloves, brace and rest seem to buy me a month or so between flare ups. I thought I was sitting funny at the computer, carrying too much weight on my shoulder or had bad circulation.

Fast forward one year after the brain confirmation and 3 years after onset. It was Christmas time. My wrist started to ache the way a bruise does when someone pushes on it — and the pain was deep between the bones. Every time I moved my fingers I wanted to scream. It burned! There were sharp shooting pains running my arm from my shoulder to the tip of my longest finger. After a while, my stress level increased because no matter what I did, the pain would not let up.

That’s when the whole right side of my body — head to toe — started to go numb too.

Doc said it was time to run blood tests for auto-immune issues. RA, Lupus, MS and so on. Levels were checked and all came back pretty much fine.

Again, WTF?!?

By January of 2015 it was time to visit the Orthopedic Doctors. The practice is multi-disciplined. The first doctor — the one who ended up doing my eventual operation — initially thought that since my pain was radiating from my shoulder, I needed to see the doctor that specialized in shoulders and necks. He set me up with PT 3 times a week for thoracic outlet syndrome and ordered an MRI on my neck.

Suspicion confirmed 2.0. The girl has a cervical spine. Like a boss.

And what a fine cervical spine it is… just one tiny problem — there was a disc that had sorta slipped ever so slightly. It isn’t pushing on any nerves, it doesn’t look like it is a real issue at all. So doc says, let’s do a nerve conduction study on you and in the meantime put you in traction during your PT sessions that aren’t working.

Nerve study… what the hell is that? For those of you who don’t know:

A nerve study on an arm is actually hell on Earth.

It starts out innocuous enough. You’re in a regular doctor’s office, they expose your arm, lay you on the table, the doctor has an object in his hand that’s attached to a box via wires. The object is small and has two metal bars at the top — like bunny ears. It is not very scary looking. Until…

The doctor pushes the metal bunny ears into your skin and presses the “torture button.” The torture button sends a signal to your arm that it is time for your muscles to contract and so they do, WITHOUT your permission! Ok. Ok. So that wasn’t the end of the world, it was uncomfortable, but I didn’t die.

The doctor does this same thing over and over and over again from my shoulder to my hand. And each time his little box is capturing how long my nerves take to communicate with one another — that’s why the thing has the ears — one ear sends the signal, the other one picks it up on its way to close your hand without your consent. However long it takes between the sending and the pick up is how long your nerves take to talk to each other. After a few of these non-consensual hand movements, I started to think, “it could be worse. I can do this.”

And that’s when they got out the needle connected to the box via wires.

WAIT! WAIT JUST A DAMN MINUTE NOW! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT?!?

The needle stuck into my arm, metal bunny ears against the skin, 1, 2, 3 — torture button pressed — needle is twisted, turned and no shit rolled around inside my muscle so doc can HEAR what they sound like while a metal bunny from hell tells them what to do! And this same process, like the electroshock before it, is repeated the full length of my arm — from hand to neck.

I asked the doctor if they planned to test me for leprosy. I imagine that test would go similar to how they decide whether or not you’re a witch in a Monty Python movie. In my dreams the doctor said, “yes. The process is simple. We tie your hands behind your back, blindfold you and throw you in a lake. If you float, you’re a witch and we’ll burn you at the stake; if you sink, you’re not a witch and we’ll arrange a Viking Funeral.”

Sigh. Doc isn’t that funny.

What he did do FINALLY, was order another MRI. This time on my wrist. That was terrible. As you know, I already had two before the one on my wrist, neither were worth detailing, both easy as pie. The wrist? I felt I was boiling from the inside out. During the MRI performed on my wrist it felt like all the tissue, tendons, bones and cartilage my wrist were collectively boiling. No, not figuratively. I thought, “this is how people spontaneously combust.” I screamed through the entire procedure. I thought I was losing my mind. MRIs don’t hurt! This MRI was excruciating.

At work in a meeting. Phone rings. Doctor says, “I got the results from your MRI, you need an operation. I’m reassigning your case back to your original doctor.” Ummm, WHAT! I could barely speak, “so, can you tell me what is wrong?”

“Yes. It seems you have Ulnar Impaction Syndrome.”

Okkkkkkkkay. WTF IS THAT?

Ulnar Impaction Syndrome in my case was due to a “positive ulnar variance.” That means (literally) the ulnar bone is longer than the radius bone. So. Fucking. What. ? Well, when your wrist is rotating the “load” is supposed to be evenly spread across both bones in the forearm. When there’s a “positive ulnar variance” the load across the bones is not evenly spread across the bones; instead, the load is disproportionately absorbed around the ulnar head.

As a result of the constant banging of the ulnar against my carpels and the surrounding tissue I had:

• Cysts between my ulna and radius
• Bone marrow edema on my carpals
• A tear in my tri-fibrocartilage (TFCC)
• Bone fragments broken off my carpels floating in my wrist

This caused:

• Loss of protective sensory receptors
• Stress on the tendon that runs the length of my forearm
• Instability of my wrist joint (hence the dropping stuff)
• AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF PAIN

PAIN

PAIN

PAIN