Theresa: Hands Full of Love

If there is one thing to know about Theresa, she is a passionate and loving woman. She loves her family, she loves her friends, and she loves cooking and baking for all. Before her hands began to hurt, you could find Theresa cooking for a 300-person family reunion or rolling out 40 pounds of cookie dough by hand. “I don’t know how to do small batches,” Theresa said. Unfortunately for Theresa, there was a 3-year gap where cooking and baking were just not possible.

Before retiring, Theresa, a 62-year-old Baltimore City resident, worked for an insurance company for 21 years, mainly working and typing behind a computer. In her off hours, you could also find Theresa using her hands in the kitchen of Baltimore International College as a full time international culinary student. Spending so much time using her hands eventually caught up to Theresa. The pain and discomfort was manageable at first, but soon became a constant struggle. Not working was not an option for her, so she pushed through the pain using hand/wrist braces wrapped in duct tape to ensure the pressure on her hands was tight enough to function.

A Continuing Pain

And things only got worse when closing shirt buttons and zipping zippers became impossible. Before she knew it, Theresa’s hands were waking her up in the middle of the night, as she says, “to talk,” they would wake her up because she had rolled onto one of her hands or it was in an uncomfortable position. The pain, tingling and numbness in her hands was at times unbearable.

Theresa would wrap duct tape around her hand braces just to get enough pressure around her hands to get constant tingling to stop. Cold air and water was off limits too - her hands would often turn purple in the winter because she couldn’t feel how cold they were getting. Stopping in the freezer section of the grocery store, was a no-go; just opening the cold freezer door was too painful, let alone grabbing something out of the freezer. Thankfully, that was all to change by a chance meeting.

Theresa was a patient of Dr. Kamala Littleton’s for a collar bone injury. However, while sitting in the waiting room for her appointment with Dr. Littleton, Dr. Clayton Alexander of The Shoulder, Elbow, Wrist and Hand Center happened to pass by, notice Theresa’s hand brace and said “I can help you with that,” pointing to her hand brace. Theresa said at that point she would’ve "let Snoopy help" her, she was in so much pain. Not before long she had an appointment with Dr. Alexander to discuss the serious pain in her hands, it was carpal tunnel syndrome.

The Right Fix

Theresa was over the moon to meet Dr. Alexander and hear the carpal tunnel in both hands could be fixed. “Fixed,” she said is the key word. No more creams or lotions to make the pain bearable, but fix her hands so she had no pain. In November of 2020, Theresa was scheduled to have surgery on her right hand and her left would been done a few months later in January. When asked how the day of surgery went, Theresa said, “I was so ready, I had to remind myself not to be excited, I didn’t want my blood pressure to go up.” Theresa also mentions how quick and easy the surgery day process was.

“Everyone he surrounds himself with is terrific, they were all so nice and made everything easy to understand. They walked me through my post-surgery exercises so I couldn’t mess them up. I had tingle in my hand, Dr. Alexander would show me how to massage it and it would go away, he knows what he’s doing.”

A week after surgery Theresa already felt strong enough and had so little pain she wanted to wash her dishes, yes, wanted. “I got right in there, got the water to the right temperature to wash, put my gloves on and got to work. I even swept the floor when I was done,” she said.

As she continues to recover from both surgeries, Theresa said she isn’t hand rolling cookie dough by hand anymore, but is happy to use her electric mixer if it means she gets to make her favorite peanut butter cookies again. Theresa does her daily hand exercises and works with a physical therapist to get her hands strong again.

“I love my hands now” she said, “Dr. Alexander was sent to me by God, God put him in front of me to help me.” Theresa continued, “Since I can’t give Dr. Alexander a hug right now, I’d give him a bag of life savers candy, because he saved my life.” When asked if she would recommend Dr. Alexander to her family and friends, Theresa responded, “I would recommend him to the world.”