Hand To Hand Combat
I’d like to talk about something near and dear to my heart ... my hands. I suffer from something called Dupuytrens disease. It affects my hands, and the hands of tens of thousands of other. Yeah, this is rife with irony. I work with my hands (who doesn’t?) and I’m afflicted with something that folds the fingers over and just generally makes my hands hurt on a daily basis. In fact, this was a bad week. That’s primarily why I set out with great intentions for frequent updates on this blog, and have come out of the gate so slowly.
Check out the picture above. That’s not a cartoonist gang sign. That’s how far I can stretch out my fingers. The left pinkie is permanently bent. The right has my middle two fingers pulling in. I’ve been through three surgeries to flatten them out. As of now, there is no cure. But there are exciting new techniques. My first surgery saw them cut open my entire palm. Subsequent surgeries have been more lie arthroscopic procedures.
Amazingly, I’ve continued to draw all this time: a cartoon a day for near a decade. And I’ve decided to spit into the wind and not only continue to play the piano, but decided to learn the guitar as well.
So why am I sharing this? Well, I bet you know someone who has it right now. Someone who has a weird little lump in their palm. Someone unconcerned that there seems to be some growths along a hand tendon. Keep an eye on it. Unchecked, it can pull your hand into a solid fist. Treated early, you have a good chance to carry on in productive ways.
If you want to learn more, here’s a forum loaded with information and posts from people like me:
And if you’d like to donate money to help, they’ll tell you how.
In the meantime, I’ll continue with the stretching, the therapy and the daily hot packs. And you have the knowledge that the weirdness that flows into every Loose Parts, starts in my brain, but pools in my hands.
Stay Loose.
Dave
Loose Parts Comic Blog
Saturday, January 17, 2009
