Hi Natalie,
First off I want to say that I’m sorry that you feel so miserable. I know how irritating and stressful it can be to bounce from doctor to doctor as they try to figure out what’s going on with you. I myself am a Dermatology nurse and I’m very familiar with the type of biopsy they probably did on your hand. I’m guessing it was a shave biopsy maybe? How painful is it? And did they tell you anything about managing the pain for it? We do biopsies all day long on all kinds of body parts and mostly on soldiers who are very physical by job and can’t usually tolerate many restrictions so we are always finding ways to minimize recovery and speed healing. I’m interested in the bumps you speak of and if you have a picture of them I’d love to take a look and maybe even show the Dermatologist I work with. The mores eyes on the condition the better, right?!

As far as your mental state, I know you’re frustrated and bummed. You may not be able to grip very well but you can still work on dancing with the pole and doing moves that don’t require the use of that hand, maybe work on some one handed stuff with the other hand?
Try to stay optimistic. I know you’re not feeling 100% but when I’m stressing about my injuries and illnesses I just think of how bad it could be. A quick story…

I am a runner, or at least I was. Recently I started suffering from severe foot pain, not related to anything. They just hurt. 1 hour into my work day and my feet are throbbing. I was popping motrin like Candy to ease the pain and that wasn’t even helping all that much. Eventually I started having abdominal pain and it turns out I gave myself an ulcer from all of the motrin I was taking. Now I’m on more meds for the ulcer (and the bleed it caused which gave me anemia which caused all kinds of other issues) and on top of it all…my feet still hurt! And I need my feet! I am registered to run my fav 10 mile race in october and I was all depressed about the possibility of not being able to do it. So I go to see the podiatrist who prescribes me special orthotics. I go to a major military hospital (Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC) to get my feet analyzed and have my custom orthotics made. I show up to the clinic ready with my sob story about my poor little feet and I’m seated in the waiting room with soldiers missing all kinds of arms and legs. See, the wounded warriors back from war come here for their care. When their arms are blown off in battle they come here to get prosthetic arms made. When they lose their legs in an attack they come here to get new ones. And I’m sitting here with my achy feet. Sitting there watching them come and go in their wheelchairs and crutches made me almost embarrassed to even be there. “At least I have feet to walk with” was the mindset I had when I left there.

Days later in my clinic we see a patient of ours who is a very accomplished runner with skin cancer. He has registered and planned to run the same race I was doing in October. We have been talking about it for months. But his skin cancer is so bad he has had to get radiation and chemotherapy which has made him so sick he can barely even walk. He gets blisters on his feet for no reason and is broken down from a runner to a cripple. This week I start my training for that race, achy feet and all. I do it because I can and he can’t. Yes it hurts. Yes it sucks. But at least I can do it, or maybe come close to doing it. While I work my way through a run he lays in bed in pain with sores all over his body that continuously blister and bleed. I’m not at 100% top of my game…but I’m a whole lot better off than he is.
When you think of your condition and your issues think of the other side of the spectrum. You are ill and do have a condition that limits you, but at least you are able to get up and walk to that pole right now. You may not be able to do what you want, but you’re able to try variations. You’re able to stand. You’re able to function. I don’t mean in any way to trivialize your condition. I only hope to bring the brighter side up and maybe give you encouragement to know that when you think it’s bad and you’re frustrated, just think of how bad it could be. Then force a smile to your face and do what you can, because there are so many others that can’t even do that.
Ok, that wasn’t a short story and I’m sorry. I went off on a tangent, but hopefully you’ll learn to take your condition in stride and do what you can do, and be grateful that you can do that.