Carpal tunnel syndrome: real-life limitations? (NOT a request for medical advice!)

Factual Questions
1

To make a very long story short, one of my co-workers has been tentatively diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, of which the symptoms have appeared over maybe the past 2 - 3 months. As I have previously known other people diagnosed with it (though it’s been quite a while), and done the requisite Googling, I have a general idea of what the symptoms (numbness, wrist/arm pain, reduced grip strength, etc.) and treatment (initially NSAIDs, wrist splints, rest/ice, progressing through cortisone shots and even surgery) consist of.

However, I (and the management) also have reason to suspect that this co-worker is using what we all actually believe is a real medical issue as an excuse for other performance issues that long predate the medical issue. For example, she has a long history of punctuality problems that date back to the beginning of her employment, frequently arriving half an hour to an hour late to work. One day last week, she arrived an hour late at work because she “had trouble washing her hair,” so she had to ask her boyfriend to do it (why this apparently took almost an hour, I have no idea, and why it had apparently not been a problem in the previous months, I also have no idea). She has been using voice recognition software on her computer at work to take the load off her hands, but apparently she doesn’t proofread the text that the software produces, because she has sent me (and other people) some e-mails with complete non-sequiturs in them.

But the kicker was this past week, when she announced that she couldn’t add the citations to a memorandum she had already written (she’s a lawyer), because it was impossible for her to flip through the source documents to find the appropriate paragraphs, etc. to cite. And that she couldn’t write an appeal brief for another case (a case that has been hers all along) for the same reason, so it had to be reassigned to another lawyer. And that she couldn’t do a new case intake interview unless someone sat with her to fill out the intake questionnaire, so that also had to be reassigned to someone else.

For myself, I would like to know how likely it is that someone with carpal tunnel syndrome would literally not be able to turn the pages of a document of, say, 10 - 20 pages; I’m not even talking about rifling through a stack of several hundred pages, or a file a foot thick, like many we might deal with in our office. This is purely for my own edification; her boss is also an employment lawyer, and he will have to make his own decisions about how to deal with her performance (which he has found lacking on many previous occasions, before the medical issues arose) and her requests to have her medical issues accomodated, and the intersection of those two issues (she had only half-jokingly suggested that I might have to come in over the weekend to literally turn pages for her, so she could check my work adding citations to the memo she wrote, many of which are to affidavits she also wrote; to put it mildly, it’s very unusual to have someone other than the person who did the writing add the citations).

I just want to know how annoyed to be with her. Is it really possible that she might literally be completely unable to turn pages of a document?

2

I didn’t technically have ‘carpal tunnel syndrome’, but I did sustain an injury that damaged the median nerve at the wrist.

My symptoms were pain, numbness and decreased motor skills in the affected hand. The pain was the impetus for having surgery to have the nerve repaired. I could physically do everything I did previous to the injury, just with increased pain and it sometimes took longer to do. I would end the day and want to stick my hand in an ice bucket to dull the pain. I could not take strong painkillers at work, so I did ibuprofen, but it didn’t help all that much.

I wore a brace to stabilize the wrist, but since the nerve was already damaged, it didn’t help. I was waking nightly with severe pain.

My job is based on having good fine motor coordination in my hands. I work in a research lab, so I am doing a lot of repetitive motion and maneuvering of small objects all day long. Where I suffered the most, IMO, was my grip strength. I could be holding something in my hand and think I had a good hold of it, and it would fall from my hand.

I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice, I had to have the surgery to repair the nerve or not work. I was out for 7 weeks and came back able to work without the pain I previously had. A friend’s father had carpal tunnel release at the same time I had my surgery. His recovery was much quicker since he didn’t have a partially severed nerve and didn’t require the same level of PT. He was back to work in 2 weeks.

Unless she has permanent damage to the nerve, which can happen as a result of carpal tunnel, a proper surgeon should be able to fix it and she should be able to resume normal duties. Having gone through something similar, I would say she is being unreasonable, especially when there is an easily available surgical fix for the problem.

3

I don’t have carpal tunnel exactly, but my rheumatoid arthritis causes tenosynovitis which compresses the nerve all the same. I had/have the problems that Minnie Luna mentioned- my grip strength is zilch and it had a persistent, dull ache to it.

Holding a pencil was impossible, so if it’s handwritten documents, you have to give her a break. Buttoning a shirt was very very difficult. And anything that pulled or pushed on my wrist, such as holding a grocery bag (pulling) or reaching into a pocket or tight shirt sleeve (pushing), was extremely painful.

Washing my hair? No problem. Driving? No problem. Flipping through a book or document? Could hurt but any moron would be able to adapt and avoid the painful motion.

As for punctuality, I had to sleep in some days because I couldn’t sleep some nights due to the pain. But the difference is that I have a job where I can do that when I damn well please, let alone when I have a valid medical issue. Your coworker should just come to work tired or take some sleeping pills.
Bottom line: Your coworker is full of shit.

4

Well, to be fair, that is one of the things she is considering. She went for an additional tests on Friday and is looking into a second surgical opinion. I’ve been in a similar boat before (though with ankle/leg issues rather than hand/wrist), and surgery is serious business, no matter what kind of surgery it is, as far as I’m concerned. If I were her, I’d only do it as a last resort.

The part that is annoying the crap out of me is that she is an intelligent person, and it just seems like she isn’t even trying to deal with most of the issues herself before just telling us that she “can’t handle” whatever it is, and waiting until it’s too late for anyone to explore possible ways she could do the work herself within her physical limitations. I had to drop my own work for 2 days to do something she should have done in the first place (or at least mentioned she was having a hard time with it), for example - she just waits until there’s no choice but for someone else to do it instead of her.

And the punctuality issues are B.S., for sure. I somehow managed to get to work on time every morning during the better part of a year that I didn’t have the use of one leg, for example. You think that didn’t slow me down getting ready in the morning?

5

I understand, kinda. If she can’t perform the work that is assigned to her, then she is in danger of losing her job. To me, that is “last resort” territory. I had trouble performing tasks and was in a lot of pain. I could have claimed disability and left my job, but for me that was last resort. The surgeon was confident he could alleviate my pain and put me back on track, it was only if the surgery didn’t work that we would consider other alternatives.