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I’ve finally worked out that holding a hot coffee in my left hand is a bad idea. I destroyed a keyboard at work with one coffee and had another one narrowly miss my two year old daughter when I dropped it without even noticing it was about to fall.

Let me backtrack a little. It’s almost a year to the day since I had my elbow surgery. I remember making a post in the poker discussion forum about my injury when it happened and it received a lot of positive responses and questions, so I figure it’s a story worth telling; especially if I can prevent a PocketFiver from experiencing what I did. Because trust me I’ve had a horrible time of it.

Firstly, I spend a lot of time at my desk. Between my job, my study, general internet use and online poker, we’re talking about hours and hours each week. I was also a really bad ‘left elbow leaner’. Meaning, that for a great deal of the time I was at my desk I was leaning and putting weight on my left elbow. I didn’t realize, but my surgeon tells me that by doing that, I was causing some mild stress on my ulnar nerve, which was leading to minor inflammation. I occasionally had some numbness and tingling as a result. I didn’t think much of it.

Secondly, last year I was living in a new house where the previous owners had made a corner desk in the office by mounting a couple of old doors (on their sides) to the wall. It wasn’t the right height, but it was big enough for all my monitors and other goodies so I used it, not thinking it would be an issue. My surgeon seems to think that the desk being a bit low for me was adding more pressure to my left elbow when I was leaning. The old doors also didn’t have rounded edges on them. They were very square meaning that potentially if you were to hit any part of your body on them, it could be quite painful.

I would never have realised that the innocuous scenario I have just outlined would have the potential to put me in hospital for surgery and cause damage to the functioning of my left hand, that for all intensive purposes, appears to be permanent.

This is what happened. I can’t remember what I was playing now, it was Full Tilt I remember that. I think a $5.50 tourney. I moved forward on my chair (which for the record was a crappy kitchen chair, not a decent quality office chair) and I hit my left funny bone; hard. I had all the usual pain, tingling and numbness you would expect, but it really didn’t go away. The next two or three days the pain and tingling sensation would come and go, but the numbness had extended into my two littlest fingers and was pretty much permanent. When I couldn’t turn a water tap on with my left hand I thought it might just be time to see a doctor.

I saw my local doctor who referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon, who sent me off to a neurologist for a nerve test. Now that test was a lot of fun (not). Kind of like sticking your arm in a toaster. The trouble spot was located and I was booked in for surgery (an ulnar nerve decompression) a short time later.

By this time, it’s probably four weeks since the initial injury. I estimate the dexterity and strength in my hand is down by at least half, I can’t hold anything of weight and the muscle has already started to waste away. Scary stuff.

So I have the surgery and the surgeon tells me that there was a clear cut crease on the ulnar nerve where the injury occurred, as a result of the square edge of the desk I hit. He also tells me that the area was already inflamed from my continual leaning. You work that one out for yourself. A decent desk and proper posture and I wouldn’t have ended up in half of that mess. I’m sent off to a physiotherapist for a rehabilitation program and told to just wait. Come back in a year.

I’ve just been for my one year check up and the news is mixed. The doctor is really happy with how my arm has recovered given how bad it was before the surgery. The strength in my left hand is at about 75% when compared with my right. There are still some obvious issues around fine motor control. My doctor tell me that I should be happy with it but to not get my hopes up about further improvement. This may be as good as it gets.

So what does this hand mean for my normal functioning? As I said at the beginning I can’t carry hot drinks in that hand. I struggle to unlock a door with keys, I can’t thumb through pieces of paper (like turning pages of a magazine) and I drop things all the time. Fortunately I am right handed so can still write okay. The numbness and tingling is totally gone but it is still an extremely frustrating state of affairs for me. Especially as it could have been avoided so easily.

Now, I have a beautiful new desk and a great chair. I sit up straight and don’t lean at all. Too little too late huh?

So my message to you, especially if you are one of those grinders, sitting there hour after hour, day after day, make sure your set up is right. If it’s not, cash some of that bankroll out and get it right. I would never have believed this was possible; but it is. Take care of yourself.