Last night, sitting in the choir loft during rehearsals for our upcoming musical, my gaze fell across my lap and stopped suddenly on a finger on my right hand. Initial suspicion followed by growing dismay. I had hoped against all odds that this wouldn’t show up before at least my 80th birthday. But, there it was, the ever so slight swelling of the distal interphalangeal, or DIP, joint of the first finger on my right hand. I’ve lived with Osteoarthritis for a few years now and sometimes friends will ask what it’s like to live with chronic pain. I have never thought of it as “chronic pain.” Still don’t. But rather take comfort from my faithful friend, the heating pad, which I go to sleep with and wake up with and use during the day only if my back hurts. Most of my symptoms have been in my upper back, neck and the base of my thumbs. I take the recommended over the counter NSAIDs and use my heating pad. It’s not a bad deal in the scope of what could be. But now….here comes the inevitable swelling of the finger joints.

I’m thinking there’s some ego involved here along with the fear and dread. I’ve always had nice long fingers. When I was small, folks would look at my hands and say to my parents, “Oh, she’s going to play the piano.” I did indeed go on to play the piano for many years. I’m very rusty now – I wonder if I’ve been avoiding it unconsciously as the discomfort has increased…hmmm. I push back mightily from thinking of the day I can no longer wield a paint brush. I’d rather eat worms. Thinking back now, I do remember having to readjust the brush in my right hand when painting my last seascape. With intense focus on strokes and colors, I remember feeling annoyed by such interruptive readjusting; the feeling one gets when swatting away a distracting fly or some such.

Well, no mind, today these fingers are still serving me well whether it’s to arduously bag those large, free-standing palms and citrus trees around the pool as our first freeze approaches or to carry the treasure box of gold behind Wise Man number one or type this journal entry via key strokes. I need to ask friend Gregg how that voice-activated system he had a few years back worked out………one might be in my future and aren’t I grateful to have such an option! Also turns out that one helpful treatment recommended is the application of paraffin wax on the hands, which as we all know, is included in spa manicures. Darn. Will just have to keep having those, I guess….speaking of a briarpatch.