Swollen

I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night last night with my ring finger burning like crazy. Rubbing it, I realized that it was swollen and my wedding and engagement rings were stuck. I thought perhaps it was a result of poor circulation overnight or something but I woke up this morning and said finger did not look happy AND, my rings were firmly squished between mounds of swollen flesh. WTF???

All my other fingers look fine. I'm not experiencing any other symptoms of swelling on hands, ankles, or feet (ok, feet are a bit pudgy, but they're working twice as hard lately!) so this was a bit of a surprise for me.

I did eventually get my rings off but not after much effort. I had to ice my finger to get my engagement ring off and then still couldn't budge my wedding ring. The more I tried, the more it seemed my finger got pissed off. After 20 minutes of icing, I decided to go the old-fashioned way - I ran cold water over my finger for a couple of minutes and slathered on some dishwash liquid. Sometimes the oldies are the goodies because, with some determination, my wedding ring eventually wriggled off.

Finger still didn't look happy, though, as you can see here.


I'm so sad that I had to give in and take off my rings. I've been very proud of the fact that I've managed to avoid this up until now, although other women in our birthing group had to remove their rings quite some time ago. Now I guess I'm just like everyone else which, as we all know, does not make me happy. Harumpf.

Rings are now on a chain around my neck. My poor naked finger feels single again. Sniff.