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Here are some things you cannot do if you have only one functioning hand.

I know this because a few weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, when I was working at my laptop, I noticed that my left hand was not participating in what is normally a joint effort. It was not in pain. It was just there, observing, as it were.

Understandably concerned, I made an appointment the next day at a neighborhood clinic where a resident put me through a routine of digital calisthenics: Can you touch the tips of each finger with your thumb? (No.) Can you make a fist? (No.) Can you make the OK sign? (No.) Can you do this? (No.) Do you feel this? (No.)

At the conclusion of our workout, she said she had made an appointment for me with a specialist whom I met later that day.

The specialist put me through an expanded version of the finger exercises I had gone through in the morning. She quickly ruled out a stroke as the source of my problem; she ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome as well.

I should have known something was awry when I overheard the doctor mumble to herself, while examining my hand, “That’s weird.”

When our session ended, she told me calmly, with no sense of alarm or concern whatsoever, that she had no idea what was wrong with my hand but that I should come back in a month. No tests. No exercises. No prescriptions. Just wait and see what happens.

I had never had a doctor tell me that s/he had no idea what was wrong with me.

Doctors are omniscient where bodily malfunctions are concerned. My primary care physician knows everything.

Nonetheless, I was willing to give the specialist the benefit of the doubt. A jaded old MD once told me that, sooner or later, people get over just about everything. Except for the last thing, of course. Maybe they went to the same medical school.

I found it oddly comforting that the specialist didn’t know why my hand wasn’t working. I need for there to be some mystery left in the universe, even if it is just why my left opposable thumb was no longer opposing.

Meanwhile, an x-ray ordered by my primary care physician came back showing nothing.

Three weeks after the onset of whatever was wrong with my hand, a receptionist called to set up a nerve conduction test on my left arm. Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. We will finally figure out where the problem lies.

The earliest open date was four weeks even further down the road.

(I have heard that in Canada and the UK, where they have socialized medicine, it takes a long time to arrange to have a specialized procedure.)

The next couple of weeks were spent trying to detect barely perceptible improvements — the space between my thumb and forefinger began to close ever so slightly — and improvising ways to perform hitherto routine tasks.

I figured out a way to tie my shoes by manipulating the three functioning fingers on my left hand. It was a slow, patience-testing procedure, but it worked, after a while.

At the end of week two, I could put on my socks — the old floppy white athletic socks, not the stretch socks that I wear on dressier occasions; that was impossible. For dressier occasions I figured I would just spray-paint my ankles.

Somewhere in the middle of my travail, a disturbing thought occurred to me: I had known people with limited or no use of a hand, but I had never thought about how it affected their everyday lives. Until it happened to me.

I like to think of myself as an empathetic person. It was disappointing to discover that my capacity to identify with the struggles of other people depends on whether I have experienced what they are going through.

At the beginning of week five, my hand slowly but steadily improving, the specialist said that my problem was still in the “We just don’t know” category and that I should return in six more weeks, at which time, if I have completely recovered, which she fully expects, my healing will officially be declared a modern minor medical mystery.

Proving that the jaded old MD was right all along: sooner or later we get over just about everything.

Except the last thing, of course.

Richard Groves (rgroves@wsjournal.com) is a writer who lives in Winston-Salem.

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A note from Sharon: I wrote the following column on Monday, May 23, the day before the horrific school shooting in Texas. 

The center was packed, no doubt because of recent local and nationwide shootings, including the school shooting the day before in Texas.

🎧 The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp case or inflation? Why people seem to focus on social issues rather than on solutions that could fix the problems they care about the most.

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