i am sadly forced to go on a hiatus for a while. i don't know how long sadly, but i will update this post when i have a ball park. about 4 weeks ago i started having pain in my wrist. i've gotten pain in my wrist on rare occasion (maybe 3 times a year) for a few years, but it'd hurt then just go away. at times i'd wear a brace to give it some extra support while healing. then the pain would go away and stay that way for a 3-6 months. it'd only last a few days at most, and felt more like a little bit of muscle irritation from overuse.

so 4 weeks ago i started having the same thing. i took some ibuprofen and took a small break to give my wrist a rest. i happened to have an appointment with my new nurse practitioner and mentioned it to her. she didn't know what was wrong but suggested a brace, which i told her i had been planning to get (i lost mine in a move).

i've been wearing the brace every day whenever i use my wrist for these 4 weeks and i can't even tell you how much pain i'm in. i have days where the pain isn't bad, but most days i'm in constant pain and numbness. on bad days, i can't even touch anything without shooting pain up my arm. i'm working on getting assistance at school because after doing a 2 hour test, i was in tears and the entire underside of my arm was numb, rather than just my hand. my doctor, at this point, is pretty sure it's carpal tunnel and we're waiting for me to get an emg to determine how bad it is and how we'll go about treating it. my guess, though, after weeks of wearing a brace, 800mg of ibuprofen ever 4 hours, icing and heating, with no improvement, surgery may be likely with the whole arm numbness.

holding a pencil, though, is extremely painful. i have lost a lot of strength in my hand because holding with any sort of tight grip is painful. in one fell swoop, i've lost my ability to draw, write, and play games. i'm beside myself because everything i enjoy is suddenly a source of intense pain.

but i need to not do them. i need to rest my wrist and not make this any worse. i can't. i have nothing to treat the pain and it's absolutely exhausting. so i'll be taking a hiatus. again, i'll try to update this when i know what my treatment plan is and when i can expect to get back to art.