Vintage Mink Bears by Kathy Myers

Vintage Mink Bears by Kathy Myers
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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

OUCH !!! I hurt my sewing finger ... over a month ago.

Oh yeah, it took me a month after I hurt my finger to go to the doctor to get it xrayed (no broken bones) but she does think that I messed up the tendons in that finger ... now I need to see a hand specialist.
Why didn't I go to the doctor sooner you may ask ... well, I won't repeat myself since I mentioned it in the post prior to this one (my WIP post)... but I had a good reason...pretty much the entire month of March was really awful for my family.

This is my hand right after leaving the doctor's office where they put my finger in a splint.
I quickly found out that your pointer finger is pretty important for doing everyday things ... your thumb is probably the only finger that is more important. So the splint comes off and on throughout the day.

After over a month of not working on my bears I gave it a try ...

trying to hand-sew with a hurt pointer finger is definitely not easy.

My bear-making was already slowing down because my hands were hurting more ...
sewing with this bad finger is really really difficult,
but these poor little bears have been sitting on my table for over a month without heads.
They need their heads so I am very slowly trying to get back to work.   

Update ... 

one month later
May 8, 2017
I tried to finish the teddies last month but my finger was just too painful. So the teddies are still unfinished. But the good news is that I finally saw a hand specialist and he looked at my x-rays and did not see any obvious damage that might require surgery. Hooray!!! but he did suggest that I get therapy for my hand. He also said that with therapy my finger should be back to normal in about a month. Even better news is that the pain is almost gone when I use my finger ... I still can't bend it completely but I'm working on that ...

I bought this awesome ball that was intended as a stress ball but it is also a great exercise ball for my hand. I love the little face on it!

So this week I am going to try to go back to working on my teddies (again). I have a feeling that I may get those poor little teddies finished ... soon ... finally!

Oh, I forgot to mention some bad news that the doctor gave me: in my x-rays he verified that I'm starting to get arthritis in my fingers. Which means that I will probably be working even slower that I have been (I usually stop sewing when my fingers start to ache)... but I'll still be making teddies for as long as I can. I will probably put a limit on how many Custom Orders I accept each year because I have a backlog of orders now and I have not been able to design or make anything new for the past year. I need to get back to making my one-of-a-kind creations.