Thank you very much for the good juju Traci!
I think I'm good. My hands hurt as I type this, but it's a part of life. My father had the same thing I did. The difference was that he didn't even know he had it until his hands weren't working properly. He needed surgery to cut out the thick cords. We had no idea it could get passed on to me or my sister. Fortunately for her, it's rare in women.
It's weird to say this, but if it wasn't for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), I would have ended up in the same boat as my dad. I can open my hands fully, but there's a resistance to it that wasn't there before. The surgeon said that the CTS caused the Dupuyten's disease to flare up. I caught it right in the earliest of stages. This means that treatments like collagenase and radiation therapy would work.
Surprisingly, the radiation therapy seems to be the most effective of the bunch. There's a low probability of recurrence following treatment. Oddly, surgical treatments tend to have a recurrence of 40%.
I did become fascinated about the lore surrounding the disease, however. My wife is tired of me bragging about my Viking/Scottish Lord heritage. After I told my dad about my research, my mom scolded me because my "high-lord" father is demanding breakfast in bed. So, some good and laughter came from all of this.
I hope you can get things squared away on your end. Sending you good juju as well.
Omg, I'm wicked giggling at the "high-lord" thing, and apologies to your wife but I would totally be milking that myself! 😂
I know everyone has different ways of dealing with things, but for me, it's the laughter that gets me through. Like if we're out shopping and I'm having a tremor episode (which thankfully hasn't happened in a while, because I've been figuring out ways to manage), my husband will start doing some little dance moves and say something like, "hey, why should you be the only one having fun" (or the line from Buffy, "Look at me, I'm dancing crazy!"), which gets us both laughing (and usually gets giggles from people around us).
You've now inspired me to see if I can find some good lore behind ET, and use it to my advantage with my family... 😉 😁
As for the surgical route being the least effective, that actually makes sense to me. I'll spare you the details of what I discovered about another condition I had before my hysterectomy, but given that surgery is by its nature an invasive procedure, and the body tends to scar when healing, it tracks that it might inadvertently trigger growth in the very thing it is trying to remove.
I hope whatever route you go, it works well for you.