Today’s appointment was the polar opposite of yesterday’s appointment. The nurse brought me back about 10 minutes early to thoroughly go through my paperwork. A few minutes after that the doctor came in. She wanted to see my cervical reports and wanted to make a clear determination of pain stemming from my elbow v. pain stemming from my neck. She said that what I have is called “double crush syndrome”. This led to doing many different tests. A few showed “Wartenberg’s sign” where I am unable to keep my pinky finger squeezing my ring finger. The tests were timed and by the time they were done both fingers were far apart from each other. Another test showed my incredible weakness in my left arm. I was not even aware it was so weak. It seemed like one of those illusions. She scratched along the nerve and did strength tests and she easily pushed my arm towards me. Unlike yesterday’s opinion, she said the EMG had shown severe compression and my nerve is working less than 50%. Due to all of the above, the only solution would be surgery on my left arm. She said it was beyond the realm of physical therapy or just wearing a brace at night. Also, the other surgeon suggested decompression surgery. This surgeon disagrees. She states decompression usually ends with another surgery down the line to move the nerve. Therefore, the surgery would combine both decompression and transposition of the ulnar nerve. From what I have read, a lot of patients agree with this approach and do not understand why their surgeons only opted for decompression. She also thoroughly went through the surgery process and will have a pre-op with me to review the surgery and all my instructions. She said to bring a list of questions. Wow! The other surgeon was not going to have a pre-op.
Surgery is scheduled for Friday, August 25th and the pre-op that Monday, August 21st. She was so thorough that I currently cannot think of any questions! Three days after surgery is Roger’s 1st day of 1st grade. I am hoping to be on my feet to see him into the doors of the school with Rob. These next few weeks will be crazy and the following six will be in recovery. Full recovery takes 3-6 months. Roger was happy to announce that in 6 weeks after surgery, I can tie his shoes again! Silly boy!
Spinning Wheels 
Wow, what a difference from the other doctor. I’m glad you found him. This all sounds reasonable and sensible to me. I have a question for you? Are you working from a regular desktop computer. Is your keyboard on the desk? If your answer is yes, this could be a major contributor to all your problems. If you sit up straight with your arms at you side, elbows bent to reach forward, that should be the height you keyboard should be. Remember years ago, or even in school when the computers came out, there used to be a little shelf that came out and it held your keyboard. If your keyboard is higher than that, it is definitely affecting your wrist, shoulder, elbow, all of it. Just a suggestion. And, if the answer is yes, and you have surgery on the 25th, perhaps you can have Bob install the keyboard tray before you start up again. Just a thought. Hope it helps. Love to you and yours, good luck with the surgery. Praying for you in Dover.
Love, Nancy
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