Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate.

Last week was again fairly rough. So I was much more focused on self-care than on meeting any goals.

That being said, I still managed 10,000 words last week. I’m rather pleased with that. A big part of the reason for such a high word count given the week is because I love this novel so much. I am still enjoying the heck out of it. I figure I’m about halfway through the novel. Still don’t know exactly how it ends. I’ll get there.

I averaged a little over 5000 steps a day last week. My left knee, the one that did not have the operation, is giving me a few problems. I am babying it. I really do not want to replace my other knee. Normally, I would not be this cautious. But I need to take care of the knee that is still original.

I stayed on top of email, but I didn’t dig in like I needed to. My plan is to get back to it this week.

I finally made it in to see the hand specialist last week. I really liked the doctor I saw. He had good energy. If he did general medicine, I would have him for my primary physician. As it is, I’m glad I have him for my hand. Because chances are, I’ll be seeing him again.

The first thing he did was examine my hand. He manipulated my thumb, had me move it than tilt my wrist, all sorts of things. By the end of that, he said that the first diagnosis of tendinitis was incorrect. Instead, all I have is arthritis.

I actually look at the diagnosis of no tendinitis as a good thing. It means I am not trying to heal anything. Instead, I’m more in maintenance mode. I just have to take care of what I have

We looked at the x-rays. I have currently still have cartilage between the bones of my thumb. This is a good thing. However, there isn’t as much cartilage as there should be. In addition, every single bone in my thumb has bone spurs. Part of the reason why my thumb hurts is because those bone spurs are scraping against the other bones.

One other piece of good news is that while I’m having problems with my thumb, my wrist “looks beautiful.” (Direct quote.) There is practically no arthritis in my wrist, no sign of carpal tunnel. So while my thumb isn’t in great shape, the other really fragile part of my hand currently has no problems.

I have a new brace that appears to be helping. And the hand doctor has made me two appointments with a hand therapist.

While my thumb hurts most of the time, it isn’t bad. Only sometimes does it feel like someone’s pounding a nail into the joint.

Eventually, will I have to have surgery to take care of the pain? They don’t replace thumb joints. Instead, they remove the bone at the base of the thumb, the trapezium. Scar tissue forms in the void. The thumb is a little shorter than it was, and you may lose a little pinching strength. But you’ll regain full mobility, and the pain will be gone.

If the arthritis and the bone spurs get too bad, I may consider it. However, my doctor was really frank about how the recovery for the operation would go. He said it was as painful as knee surgery. That after three months, I’d start to feel better, there would be less pain after six months, but it would take as much as nine to twelve months before I’d start to really feel better.

Yuck.

In the meanwhile, I’m trying to make accommodations. For example I am dictating this blog post. I am now dictating all of my essays. Eventually I’ll figure out how to dictate my fiction. I’m not there yet.

Today I work on email. My accountant has given me until March 15 or my taxes, so I don’t have to worry about those today.

In general, I am not a maintenance person. I’m much better with big projects than daily maintenance. However, I’m learning. What kind of person are you? Maintenance or project based?