With a great deal of sadness and regret, I withdrew from grad school classes yesterday morning, deferring my enrollment/involvement with the program until next June.
I’ve had tendonitis for 3-5 years now and had surgery on my left wrist in Sept-01. Things haven’t been too bad since, because I don’t hold/grip pens and write—I type. But the pain in my wrists/hands has been growing ever since I started taking undergrad courses to get ready for grad school and started writing things by hand extensively. At one point, during my summer math grad class in mid-June, the pain was so bad and distracting I almost hit a guardrail driving back from Ypsilanti on I-94.
I ignored it as much as possible and pretended things were fine. But they’re not. Truth is, I’m 40 and my tendons are shot and I don’t like it or want to admit it, but I have a problem. When grad school started full-bore last week, each day was more painful than the last. I also tripped and fell on my right arm and that certainly didn’t help. I ended up passing out in the middle of the night a week ago and then in the doctor’s office last Friday morning being pushed, prodded, pained and poked. Now, I’ll be starting physical therapy next Wednesday to try to get things back in order, as well as assessing what has to be done beyond therapy.
