Useless

I have two useless digits – my pinkies. Both hands. And I’m not talking about useless in the way that they just sort of take up space, but as in, I can’t use either of them anymore. This has made typing a particularly painful chore.

Alright, so they aren’t completely useless, not 100%, but typing is painful. And for most tasks, I really can’t use either finger.

What happened? First off my right hand was injured playing dodgeball a couple of years ago. A ball hit my finger and dislocated it, but it snapped right back into place, but it never healed correctly. The best guess is that a tendon or ligament is permanently out of place. X-rays aren’t showing much, and without surgery, there’s nothing to be done. Since I am right handed, I am unable to grab and throw the ball in the manner with which I need to be able to play, so I’ve had to give up playing dodgeball, which is rather upsetting.

As for my left hand, I have no idea what happened. On the first of this month, I woke up with my left hand being a little sore. Over the next few days the pain diminished in the hand overall, but also increased along the line of bones in my palm and finger for my pinky. While I am now able again to make a fist, my left pinky hurts when I do so.

There are certain positions and pressures that really hurt my left pinky. It’s almost as if one or two of the bones are bruised. If you do a lot of typing, you know just how much you use that left pinky. Every time I start a sentence, I press the SHIFT key to capitalize a letter. The letter “A” is also pretty commonly used.

These are on top of my weak ankles, back pack, and degrading knees. There are days where I feel twice as old as I am.