This one needs an intro!

Some thoughts and feelings about my 13-year journey with Kienbocks Disease where a bone in your hand, the lunate, dies and how that one little bone causes havoc and loss and pain. And somehow, connection. And how a surgeon removes the dead bone and adds it to something like concrete to bind the other bones as they fill the gap around the crumbling bone that has no life. The dead bone becomes the connection between the living ones.

Hands.

Miraculous appendages at the end of our arms.

They do what we want.

They do what we think.

Until they don’t.

**

Hands.

Miraculous because of their connection.

To our arms. And brain. Moving only because of the wrists.

**

Wrists.

Not often the focus of our attention.

Because they are not a ‘thing’ but rather a collection of ‘things’

They work because of their connection.

They do what we say.

Bones. Holding us in place.

And when one bone dies?

A small one.

An insignificant one.

**

The bone crumbles.

No more life. No more agility.

Loss.

Unseen loss.

Loss of bloodflow to the bone.

Loss of life.

**

It sits there.

Looking the same.

But not living its reason.

Slowly, it dies.

**

One does not notice at first.

A simple irritation.

That turns into pain.

That turns into loss.

That turns into suffering.

That turns into limitation.

That turns into isolation.

That turns into lack of connection

Between hand and arm.

**

And slowly, it turns …

… It turns into connection.

Between souls and bodies.

Between the living and the dead.

Between ones that love.

And give.

And drive.

And share.

Between friends.

And family.

True connection.

Despite the lack of connection.

Disappointment.

Promise.

Healing.

Violent healing.

Bones removed. Mashed up.

Turned into connection

Between bones that are alive.

**

Slow healing.

At the hands of a man.

Who loves hands.

And how they work.

And makes them work.

**

Connection.

To self. To pain. To relief.

To others.

To kindness.

To generosity.

**

To suffering.

To being misunderstood.

To healing.

To slow healing.

That begins with new movement.

To community.

To love.

To life.

To hands …

_______________________________

Captions: Image 1: A gift from my family on my birthday this year. No words. Just tears as this clay sculpture of a hand being held up said all that words cant.

Image 2: An x-ray of a hand with a lunate that has died, the shadowed bone.

Image 3: My hand after two surgeries years apart.

Gratitude: I am so grateful to Dr. Mike Solomons who is the hand specialist who so brilliantly weaved his magic in between the bones, alive and dead.

Sometimes dead bones don’t come back to life despite our hopes and prayers. Sometimes we see the life a dead bone can bring.