Skip to main content

In all Its Glory Ten

This is what I wake up to every morning: Spiderman hand. To celebrate that, here are:

Ten Positive Things About Having Arthritic Hands

Arm-wrestling challenges are never made to me.

For Halloween I really can dress up as Spiderman, and I'll look very authentic.

I always get a pass for not having a proper manicure.

I don't have to do anything that requires the wearing of gloves for the rest of my life.

People who know me never try to shake my hand. People who don't try, stop when they actually see my hand, look horribly embarrassed, and then apologize profusely.

Picking out what rings to wear is not a problem (can't slip any past the swollen joints.)

Polite applause is never expected of me.

The Asian guy in the mall who tries to wheedle passing people into his massage salon only grimaces at me.

The impulse to give people who drive badly the finger remains just an impulse.

When my guy and I are out he doesn't try to hold my hand. He keeps an arm around me (sweet) or tucks his hand in the back pocket of my jeans (sexy.)

Labels:

Comments

nightsmusic said…
Your hand actually looks better than I thought it would. We have a friend who's fingers aren't only gnarled terribly, but they point at a 90 degree from their hands, both, rather than straight off. My fingers are twisting but so far, hanging in there. I'm really sorry you're going through this. The sweetest thing in this post is your guy walking with his hand in the back pocket of your jeans (and yes, it's sexy!)
September 17, 2020 at 8:07 AM
Maria Zannini said…
You don't have rheumatoid arthritis, do you? A friend of mine (very young) has a hand/wrist that looks just like that. It's bad enough when people our age get it, but I hate to see young people get it. Think of the decades ahead of them like this.

At least I've done enough dumb things in my life that merits having gnarled fingers and dislocated joints.
September 17, 2020 at 3:00 PM
the author said…
I've had rheumatoid arthritis since I was 28, unfortunately. It mostly affected my hands, feet and (oddly) one knee. Just in the last couple of years I've also developed osteoarthritis in my neck, shoulders, one arm and three fingers. :( So it's going to get interesting now.
September 18, 2020 at 11:06 PM
the author said…
I've had three surgeries on this particular hand, but the scars are mostly on the other side so it doesn't look so bad from this angle. I am blessed so far not to have the gnarling, although in a couple of years I'll likely be dealing with that, too. Never a dull moment with my joints. :)
September 18, 2020 at 11:08 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to
Post a Comment
Read more

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more