Hypochondriac

All in all, I'm a pretty healthy person. However, I have a lot of surgical excitement in my life; sometimes it seems like if it can happen, it will happen to me. Yeah, most of my surgeries stem from a car accident, which is bad luck, not bad health. But then I've also had my appendix out, my tonsils out, had my nose broken enough to require 2 surgeries to fix it (Hottie Friend hits a nice line drive); one of my ortho fusions failed and I had to have it redone and spend a second 3-month stint on crutches in one year; after a 10 days in hospital after my car accident I was about to be sent home when I got a systemic infection due to too many antibiotics which required an extra 10 days in hospital, blood transfusions, feeling like I wanted to die, etc. I wanted a lovely med-free birth, and ended up with a c-section. I'm not even adding in the idiot incidences, like dropping cabinets on my foot. Sometimes I feel like a hypochondriac when I worry about symptoms for regular daily things.

I currently have some chronic pain that I don't know how to handle. What I am calling carpal tunnel may be something else - I've only really had it since being pregnant, but it is worse than ever now. I have serious pain in my hands, along the knuckle and up the wrist and forearm. Sharp, scorching pain that zaps me when I bend my wrist to put on the Ergo sling, or pull off baby pants while changing a diaper, or pick up a baby. I am almost unable to open the dog crate for Cosmo. I can't open jars, push myself off the floor with my hands, or carry groceries well. My hands go numb regularly; it is not unusual for me to wake up when Monito cries and have to shake the feeling back into my hands before I can pick him up at night. It hurts so much that I have awakened a sleeping baby with my loud gasp after attempting to crate the dog. I did buy a wrist brace and wore it for a while, but misplaced it. It helped some, but it is damned hard to deal with soft sensitive babies with a club for a hand. I have been going to acupuncture for it, which also helps, but that is $65 per session and isn't covered by insurance. I'm not going to go any more until I've exhausted the treatments for which I won't have to pay out of pocket. I also have serious pain in my feet, along the balls of both feet. It feels, frankly, like the same pain in my hands. What the hell is that about? Arthritis? Lupis? Nature's way of telling me I'm too fat? Sigh. I like knowing how to fix things. This soft tissue crap is so amorphous and vague. Some medical professional is going to make a mint off of me.