1.  Best practice would have been to start this earlier in the week.

2.  Second best is before Friday morning so this is already a win.

3.  The fact that it’s 1:30pm Thursday instead of 9pm is a double win.

4.  Let’s give ourselves a whoop whoop!

5.  On the downside my typing is painfully slow.

6.  The doctor asked me to try out my old carpal tunnel brace to see if I can tolerate it.

7.  The good news is it’s not immediately aggravating my ulnar nerve so I don’t have that searing pain like last month.

8.  The bad news is it’s majorly structured — great for protecting the wrist, not so great for using my hand.

9.  The right one. My dominant one, of course.

10.  Ughhhh.

11.  I’ve been dealing with significant wrist pain for a while.

12.  I wrote last month about the unexpected joy of getting a nerve injection for carpal tunnel.

13.  It was — and I cannot overstate this — extraordinarily awful, painwise.

14.  The carpal tunnel pain was also extraordinarily awful, though, so it was a worthy experiment.

15.  The good news at my follow up was that my carpal tunnel looked much better.

16.  The bad part — and c’mon, we all saw this coming — was that I was still having significant pain.

17.  It was different than carpal tunnel but pain is pain and I wasn’t a fan.

18.  In the end the ultrasound couldn’t pinpoint what was going on and my doctor ran out of theories.

19.  As he put it, “I’m just not seeing what’s causing this…but you’re special so…”

20.  Everyone who’s had experience in medical spaces understands special is not the adjective you want to hear.

21.  So I opted for an MRI because enough is enough and answers give options.

22.  MRIs are a mixed bag — you want an answer but you don’t want that answer to be serious enough to be, well, terrible.

23.  Terrible is relative, though, and I have a good measuring stick for it so into the machine we went.

24.  Yes, I understand having a good measuring stick isn’t ideal but it is what it is and we keep it moving.

25.  And the wrist? Drumroll please…

26.  We’re packing a TFCC tear in there.

27.  It’s not great news as my doctor tagged out with a nope, off to a hand specialist you go.

28.  We’re not panicking, though, we’re just gonna gather more data about options.

29.  NOT PANICKING, DAMMIT.

30.  And there’s my health update for October.

31.  Our leaves are finally starting to change out back.

32.  There’s a brilliant orange/red tree and some yellow sprinkled in too.

33.  This time of year used to make me a little sad.

34.  A bit like when cut flowers start to dry up and die; watching leaves fall to the ground felt a little ick.

35.  In this house, though, bare branches make for great bird watching.

36.  Hawks swoop around back there and large birds build nests up in those trees.

37.  It’s a glass half full perspective…

38.  BrightSide would be so proud.

39.  Happy Friday, everyone.

40.  Here’s wishing you a restorative weekend with whatever joy you love best.