What I did not need is another excuse for slowing/stopping progress, but I’ve found a ripper. A fall while off-trail bushwalking in October 2017 apparently tore a ligament allowing bones to rearrange themselves in my left (dominant) wrist. The condition is called SLAC wrist, or the charming “Terry Thomas Sign”. I’ve always loved the pantomime villain Terry Thomas played in some of my favourite movies, he was brilliant.
At the time I ignored the hurt, but during 2018 it got worse so I pursued a gradual escalation of medical intervention. That ended with an attempted reconstruction in November 2018. Once into the wrist with his knife, the surgeon discovered too much arthritis to proceed. Apparently the left wrist is riddled with it, quite a mess. There are also signs my right wrist may also be arthritic. The Doctor didn’t want to risk pulling it all tightly back together, when it wasn’t going to fit. So he set about performing an arthroscopic cleanup.
The medicos think the heavy fairing process did a lot of the recent damage, and I’d have to agree. I could never sustain fairing with a torture board for long, and was sore for days afterwards.
The whole thing has left me feeling pretty down and rapidly aged. It turns out I can’t do it all, being a part-time boat builder when I spent a life as a desk jockey has consequences.
I am writing this in March 2019 feeling about as recovered as I will be from the arthroscopy and news of the reality. I am feeling better in myself now, I’ve reconciled how I can progress with the build, I have also made real progress, I’ve changed out some tools, and learned a few new techniques which I will share in future posts.
I have also embraced some help from friends and I am deeply touched by their support.
Paul's boat blog 