My poor hands...

Soo...

I have been digging for a week and a half solid... Usually with a shovel or a small trowel, either hand-weeding or digging holes for planting vines, mostly in hard soil. I am pretty sick of it, but that aside...

My hands started to hurt about a week ago. It started as a weak pain that seemed like just soreness from over use. I am used to muscle soreness in my hands from rock climbing, and this felt a little bit different. Then I started waking up with my hands feeling numb and tingly, like I had been sitting on them all night. It has gotten to the point now where I can barely use my hands first thing in the morning. Once I stretch out my forearms and take something to cut down the inflammation in my finger joints it is ok. At least I can use my hands. Still cannot grip things tightly, and my joints feel swollen and tight.

I have kept telling my immediate supervisor about it for the last week, and my concern has been met with "you just are not used to the work" or "stretch your arms out more," along with an obvious judgement that I am complaining about nothing and just don't like the work. Finally today I took it up with the assistant viticulturist, who was much more concerned about it. Today I put stamps on envelopes to give it a rest. Tomorrow I will be taking the day off if it still hurts...

Now, I feel like I am not a baby about things, and consider myself to be pretty tough and have a pretty high pain tolerance, so if something actually bothers me, it is usually a big deal. I have broken fingers and even my collar bone without even noticing I broken bone, and gone without pain meds when I burnt most of the skin off my arm. So I have been getting a little upset with my supervisor and co-workers who think I am making a big deal of nothing. Furthermore, the viticulturist and assistant viticulturist don't blame my immediate supervisor for telling me to buck up and get back to work without ever passing on my concern to them, but seem rather to blame me.

And even better, it seems that while NZ worker's comp will cover doctor's bills if it proves that serious, it does not cover lost wages, so if I end up not able to work my last week due to this, that is just my loss.

<---Really grumpy about all of this.

I am icing my hands and hoping the rest will do them some good.

Ugh!

~matt