I’m fine.

I’m not generally a hypochondriac but I outdid myself this weekend.

I noticed my thumb had gone numb, just near the middle joint. You’re not supposed to Google, I know that. Obviously, I googled anyway (of course I did) and immediately realised that I had definitely just developed a serious case of carpal tunnel.

While I was deciding this, my thumb got worse. Now it was numb all over. This was strange because I didn’t think carpal tunnel developed that quickly. Clearly, I was special. I did more googling. Couldn’t find anything about rapid-onset carpal tunnel, but there had to be a first for everything. I was probably going to end up in a medical journal, Carpal Tunnel Weekly or Trapped Nerve Fanciers. I took some neurofen. It didn’t work, and my thumb was getting more painful. It hurt to move it and it felt cold. I huddled under a blanket, but it didn’t help much. Luckily I could still use my other hand to work a search engine.

I googled some more and found a subreddit for carpal tunnel. I was definitely going to need some cortisone injections, maybe surgery down the line. I read that there’s a connection between high blood pressure and carpal tunnel. That was obviously what was causing this. I’d cracked this case wide open.

My thumb was a lot more uncomfortable by now. I was probably going to have to see my GP tomorrow. I try to avoid seeing doctors because they do outrageous things, like taking my blood pressure and shaking their heads sadly at me. There was nothing else for it this time, though. I was going to have to seek medical help. My thumb was still cold and it looked swollen.

That’s when I saw it. The hair elastic I had wrapped twice around my wrist not five minutes before I developed carpal tunnel. It was really digging into my flesh. I took it off and my thumb immediately felt better. And warmer as the blood flow I’d cut off started to reach my hand again.

So there it is. Rapid-onset forgetfulness with a side-serve of chronic Dr Google.

I’m very glad my carpal tunnel cleared up so well, though.