A few weeks ago I was taking pictures of the great blue herons high in the trees at the rookery near our house off of Route 202. I was having a little trouble focusing my camera on the birds and when I got home, lo and behold many of the pictures were out of focus. About the same time I noticed I was having trouble picking up my wallet and buttoning my shirt. I realized my right hand was not working well. My fine motor skills were off. So, I made an appointment with Tom’s great hand doctor, Dr. Zelouf and a few days later went in for a check up. He diagnosed that my “right anterior interosseous nerve had partial palsy!!” Yikes. What is an old, old nature photographer to do? That nerve which controls my right upper thumb is critical. I use it every single day to focus and to turn the dials on my Sony camera. Oh dear, oh dear.
The good doctor Zelouf recommended that I go see an even more specialized doctor to determine exactly what was going on with that non working nerve. So yesterday, Tom and I went to see the second doctor. A wonderful man named David Hutchinson Pt, SCE, ECS (whatever that means.). He is a “Board Credentialed Clinical Electrophysiologic Specialist.” He had me wash my hands and then warm them in hot running water for two minutes. Then hooked my fingers up to little electrodes and pulsed little shocks through my hand and fingers and arm. Each time they pulsed, my arms flinched and buckled and bopped up and down. It wasn’t painful, but my body knew this is not normal. Then after all that was done, he said the fun would begin. He took little needles – and like acupuncture, placed them into my fingers and hand and pulsed again. This time my body really didn’t like it. I felt very lightheaded and sweaty, but I wanted to be brave. I made no complaints and did just as the doctor asked me to do. About the end of this process he had me put my head down on my resting hands on the table and he put a long needle in my neck. I’m O.K. I can handle this. He said something like, “O.K. we are all done, you can raise your head.” At that point I blacked out completely. And the next minute I realized the doctor had picked me up cradling me in his arms. I had fainted. He and another person from his office carried me to a bed and laid me down. I stayed there for a few minutes. Then sat up, drank two glasses of water, sucked on a lollipop and felt a world better. YOWZA!! The doctor said he has done this testing at least 40,000 times and I am only the 6th person who fainted……
Our next stop after that visit was to go back to Dr. Zelouf with the findings from Dr. Hutchinson. We arrived there a few hours later. Dr. Zelouf looked at the findings from Dr. Hutchinson. He pushed my thumb up and down a few times and said, “Look, you are getting better!!” I was certain he was just putting me off. I didn’t feel any better or any stronger. He then told me to make an appointment and come back in a few weeks. I was so put off, I thought this is just nonsense.
But then this morning, I typed into my little computer a one sentence finding that Dr. Zelouf had underlined in Dr. Hutchinson’s findings. “High moderate right anterior interosseous nerve axonopathic process with marked muscle membrane instability changes into the FPL and early reinnervation changes into the pronator quadratus.” I asked AI to tell me what that meant. That sentence in essence said, “Good News, the nerve is starting to heal and reconnect to the muscle.” Praise be to the Lord on High. Let it be so.