Delays & Recovery
Over a year ago, I wrote a post indicating that I “was back” to writing; however, that post ended up being completely wrong. I had so many plans. In addition to finishing my rewrites and submitting Stormgate to agents for consideration, I had several board game reviews planned.
Sadly, my health kept getting in the way.
My job requires me to type for approximately 20-24 hours per week and I had been experiencing worsening pain and numbness in my hands. When I wrote that March 2024 post, I thought we were zeroing in on what the cause was and had a number of treatment plans lined up. None of them worked.
As a result, I needed to preserve my stamina and hand function for my paying job, as much as I would rather have been doing something more creative instead.
In late March 2025, I felt blindsided when I discovered what was most likely causing the issues: a tumor smack-dab in the middle of my spinal cord had grown to the point where it was pressing the nerves against the surrounding vertebrae just below my skull. While grateful the doctors discovered this before the inevitable cascade of loss of other functions that would inevitably lead my being a quadriplegic at best, dead at worst, I had been hoping for a much easier medical solution.
I was able to work with who are likely the most qualified neurosurgeons for this particular type of cancer and am recovering now. In order to foster/rebuild the nerve connections for fine motor control, I have been told I need to do at least three things I love:
- Play video games;
- Play board games; and
- Type and/or write.
Why are these things required for rehab therapy? The recovery from major spinal surgery includes a large amount of swelling, which exacerbates the symptoms I was experiencing prior to the surgery and then some. The way I understand it, it’s as if the disease temporarily progressed further than the stage it was at prior to the surgery. In my case, these symptoms mean near-complete numbness in the middle, ring, and pinky finger of both hands; near-complete numbness of everything below my waist; and complete numbness of my chest and stomach. Three weeks after the surgery, many of these symptoms are already going away.
On the positive note, I have enough muscle memory to type even without the sensor / tactile feedback I would normally use to know where my hands are on the keyboard. On the downside, once I have to use any punctuation, numbers, or any other function that takes my hands off the home keys, it’s really easy for me to get lost and end up with a random jumble of letters and numbers.
I’ve got a few ideas for short stories and I finally have time to write creatively while I am off work for medical leave. I’m not promising constant posts on the website, but I do foresee positive motion for the first time in a long time.
For anyone out there experiencing what they think might be a minor health issue but can’t seem to find a resolution to it, I encourage you to advocate for yourself. Push harder to try to find a resolution (within reason–don’t go full Karen, but you’re the one that knows your body). Find a friend or group of friends and family that will hold you accountable–did you make all your appointments? Did you go? Did you follow up?
Without those people in my life, I likely would still be sitting here complaining about my hands and how uncomfortable everything was but not doing anything about it. All the while, a tumor growing on my spine would be choking out control paths in a slow, insidious manner. Possibly so slowly I would have continued to mistake the symptoms as “just getting older.”
Long story short, this post is a bit of an over-share. At the same time, it’s part of my rehab therapy. Take care of yourselves, people. See you on the other side of all this.