Giving My Hands a Rest

I've had a delay getting back to my blog due to a carpal tunnel problem aggravated by all the yard work I have been doing lately. Mowing is the biggest aggravation. The numbness spreads from my hand all the way up to the elbow. The right hand is worse because of holding the lever that keeps the power drive on the front wheels running. I finally resorted to holding it down with a velcro strip, but that defeats the automatic shutoff, which isn't really safe. It does, however, allow me to wear a brace on my wrist and keeps me mowing a bit longer.

Years ago I taught myself to mouse with my left hand by playing solitaire. I used to have a problem with my wrist every spring when I was trying to plant and finish up all the end of the year paper work at the same time. Simple websurfing can be done left-handed, but I can't do my graphics work. I am just not accurate enough.

I bought some newer braces for my wrists to wear at night. I was waking up with numb hands every morning before I started using them. The older brace allows more flexibility, so it works well when mowing. The newer ones have a larger hard piece that goes into the palm of the hand, so holding anything while wearing them is basically impossible.

The planting is done, and except for a couple of spots, the mulching is also. I need to do a bit a pruning this week. Then mowing, weeding, and deadheading will be the major things to do the rest of the summer. Anything else on my gardening want-to-do list can be done on a more leisurely basis. So I should be able to ease myself back into the graphics work and finish up the tutorial series I was working on.