Health

2-week post-op fingers surgery appointment

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A quick visit to the doc today to get my stitches removed and for another pleasant exchange with Dr. Erickson.

Assessment: Looking good. No signs of infection. Keep bandaged for another couple of days and then start rubbing some cream containing cocoa butter and vitamin E over them, if you want to, to help minimize scarring.

Complete cynical-healthcare-expense aside: I was glad to see that my visit was at no charge, and that Medicare wasn’t going to be charged $10 per bandage.

Exercise check-in

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If you had to choose between eating bacon every day, or being skinny for the rest of your life, would you choose applewood or hickory-smoked?
 
 
 
#PlanetFitness #Cardio #30MinutesElliptical
#Home #CoreStrengthening #BicycleCrunches #DeadBugs #PelvicTilts #Bridges #KneeExtensions #KneeToChestStretches #Clamshells #HipSideSlides

Note: Image generated by Gemini AI

Blood pressure and heart rate stats for March 2025

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I have white coat hypertension (a.k.a, white coat syndrome), so I keep a record of my daily blood pressure readings to take to the doctor’s office whenever I go. I record my heart rate, too, but only because the machine takes it along with my blood pressure.

White coat hypertension aside, knowing your numbers is just plain smart, since high blood pressure is known as “the silent killer.” Do you know yours?

Yammering my way through finger surgery

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This is the second surgery that I’ve had that has been with just a local anesthesia. The first one was 38 years ago, about which I wrote this 50-word story:

Mind if we watch?

At 29, I got a vasectomy. With my legs in stirrups and my junk hanging through a hole, the surgeon asked if a med school class could observe the procedure. To my surprise, I heard my Valium-induced euphoric response: “Sure, why not? Y’all pop some popcorn and sit up front.”

Last Wednesday, I had surgery to remove mucoid cysts on 2 of my fingers — also with just a local anesthesia but with no med school students watching.

The most interesting thing that happened while the prep team was reading all of the disclosures to me that have to made before surgery (e.g., “All surgeries involve some kind of risk.”) was this disclosure: “Dr. Erickson [my surgeon] is a business partner of — and has financial interest in — this center.”

About 45 minutes before being wheeled into the OR, I had a Valium and 4 (quite) painful numbing injections — 2 in the palm of my left hand and one into each finger that was going to be sliced open.

In the very cold OR, with a drape between me and my hand so as not to see the operation, along with the doctor there were several people in the room — 4, I think.

I chatted with the doctors and nurses the whole way through. Here are snippets of some of the conversations:

Doc (pinching my middle finger to make sure it’s completely numb): Can you feel this?
Me: Actually yes, just a little.
Doc: OK, let’s put a little more numbing medicine in that one. How about this index finger?
Me: No, I don’t feel anything on that one.
Doc: Good. We’ll start on this one while the numbing on the other one is progressing.

Nurse (scrubbing my lower arm and entire hand including all of my fingers): We are just going to get you good and clean to avoid any chance of infections.
Me: Thank you.

Doc: I’m putting a rubber cover over your nearby finger for protection.
Me: Thank you.

Doc: OK, we are finishing up on this finger. I’m going to stitch it up and then we’ll start on your other one.
Me: I appreciate the play-by-play as you are operating. It’s very helpful and comforting.

Me: Do you have a preference for the days you work in the office seeing patients as opposed to the days that you’re here doing surgery?
Doc: I like a mix of both, really. I enjoy spending time with patients figuring out what’s causing their pain, and I enjoy surgeries, too. This is my favorite kind of surgery, though, where the patient is awake and we can have a conversation.

Me: My husband and I are getting to the age where some of our doctors are retiring, like Dr. Edwards where you work. I saw him 18 years ago to look at my finger, and now he’s retired.
Doc: And his son is working with us now!
Nurse (I think his name was Peter): And his son is very good, too.
Me: Dr. Wyker did my knee replacement and my husband’s hip replacement. He’s probably getting ready to retire, too.
Nurse: I used to work in Dr. Wyker’s office! Good guy.
Me: He’s probably been on a few vacations in the Caribbean off of our joint-replacement money alone.

Me: Where is your favorite place to vacation?
Doc: There is a ranch in Wyoming that my family likes to go, generally once every other year.
Me (sort of joking): A dude ranch?
Doc: Well yes, it is a dude ranch. We like to ride horses, it’s peaceful and quiet there, and I like to sit on the porch and read — and just relax.

Doc: What’s been your favorite vacation so far in your life?
Me: Two come to mind: 1) For my 50th birthday I went to 3 places in the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die. They included The Blue Mountains of Sydney, 7 Spirit Bay in The Outback, and Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, and 2) this past August, my husband and I did a Safari at the Sabi Sabi™ private game reserve in South Africa. It was as incredible as everyone says they are.

Doc: What do you do to fill your days in retirement?
Me: I read a lot. I read 102 book in 2022, and I’m close to 30 so far in 2025. Also, I spend at least 8 hours a day on the computer — a lot of that time writing. I was a writer and editor for a living, and I still write something every day. I write three 50-word stories around a theme every Wednesday, keep a sentence-a-day diary, and blog about observations I make during my day. In fact you’ll probably be in my blog one day this week.
Doc: Ha! That’s great. About how many people, would you say, read your blog?
Me: 4.
(Laughter all around.)
Me: I’m sorta joking, but it’s not a lot. You aren’t going to go viral or anything.
(Chuckles all around.)
Me: My husband and I also occasionally take walks downtown, take 5 or 6 pictures each, and then sit on our front porch with a cocktail (or two) and write haikus about them. Real renaissance men.
Doc (and others listening in the room): That’s neat.

Doc: We’re finishing up now. I’ll stitch up this second finger, and then we’ll get you out of here and into the recovery room.
Me: Thank you. All of you have been great, and I appreciate each one of you.

All-in-all, it was a great experience. I was only in the recovery room for 15 to 20 minutes and then wheeled out to the car in a wheelchair, which was required because I had had a Valium. Bob drove us home. I get these bandage monstrosities removed in 5 days, so Monday 3/31/25.

If you’re the type who enjoys watching live surgery, here is a video of what they did. Note: This is not my surgery. As the image denotes, you have to watch it over on YouTube. To do so, click the “Watch on YouTube” link in the image. It’s 4½ minutes long.

Mucoid Cyst Surgery

I have had it handled

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Recently, like in the last month or so, these painful nodules popped up on the end of the middle and index fingers on my left hand.

A trip to the Raleigh Hand-to-Shoulder Center diagnosed them as mucous cysts, also known as ganglion cysts, and yesterday I had them removed.

They have to remain wrapped for 5 days, and it’s really cramping my style typing.

I am dictating what I want to say into an iNote on my phone and then cutting and pasting the resulting text into this blog entry. I will not be deterred.

Bette, Tolstoy, Roseanne Roseannadanna, and me on the “golden years”

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From the movie Elegy:

I think it was Bette Davis who said old age is not for sissies. But it was Tolstoy who said the biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age. Old age sneaks up on you, and the next thing you know you’re asking yourself — I’m asking myself — why can’t an old man act his real age? How is it possible for me to still be involved in the carnal aspects of the human comedy? Because, in my head, nothing has changed.

Or, as Roseanne Roseannadanna said (6 seconds):

In the last month or so, these painful nodules have popped up on my middle and index fingers on my left hand, and today I learned about mucous cysts (a.k.a. ganglion cysts), which I’ll have removed in the next 2 weeks.

3/14/25 @ Raleigh Hand to Shoulder Center, Dr. Erickson

Looking at this x-ray taken at the Raleigh Hand to Shoulder Center, the doctor said about the spaces between my knuckle joints, “These are the joints of an 18-year-old.” (So flattering! 😂😂😂). And about the proximal interphalangeal ones (midway between knuckles and fingertips), “And these are still very good.” But, as you can see, about the ones near your fingertips, well there’s bone-on-bone osteoarthritis going on there, especially in those two fingers with the nodules.”

As the old #DadJoke goes — certainly, my dad said it often: “Arthur — the worse one of the Ritis family.”

Interesting aside: You see that crooked little finger? I had that checked out in 2007 in the same practice, which used to be called the Raleigh Hand Clinic, and it was Dr. George Edwards, Jr. who looked at it. 18 years later and Junior has retired and Dr. George Edwards III now works there. (You might be getting old if a lot of your doctors are retiring.)

It has never caused me any pain — and still doesn’t in spite of the x-ray suggesting it could, probably should. It also hasn’t gotten any more crooked. I affectionately refer to it as “my cut & paste finger,” since I tend to “rock” on it when I execute those functions.

In all fairness to my fingers, they have been very, very good to me throughout my 42 working years, starting with keyboard work that began with typing more punched cards than you can shake a stick at during my 4 years of undergrad learning how to program.

And every job, and there have been plenty of them — from my very first job at IBM in 1980 until I retired from Red Hat in 2022 — my fingers have cranked out untold millions of characters without any pain that was debilitating enough to stop me. I’m actually quite surprised I never got the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome over the years.

Give a hand to my hands.

Blood pressure and heartrate stats for February 2025

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I have white coat hypertension, also known as white coat syndrome, a condition where blood pressure is higher in a medical setting than in other settings.

That’s my main impetus for taking my blood pressure daily, the results of which I take to my doctor whenever I go for an office visit. She always appreciates seeing my charts, which help her more confidently make any adjustments that might be needed to my BP medicine.

Also, with high blood pressure being called the silent killer, it’s comforting to me to “know my numbers.” Do you know yours?

Average BP for February 2025 was 121/53

Average heartrate for February 2025 was 49.

Exercise check-in

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One day I hope to have a family to match the serving size I eat.
#PlanetFitness #Cardio #30MinutesElliptical #15MinutesTreadmill

I earned a “get out of jail free” card by working out today, on my usual day off. I’ll skip a day on either Wednesday or Thursday of this week, if the predicted bad weather actually comes through.