I'm sitting in a coffee shop at the northern border of Washington, a stone's throw from Canada, working and waiting for my appointment to get my Nexus card. For non-Americans, this is the administrative/bureaucratic stunt that puts me into the special caste of travelers who... I dunno... don't have to take their shoes off at the airport? Sometimes get a shorter line at border crossings? It's all Security Theater, and I am participating fully in it. I feel like an idiot, but I've felt like an idiot 6x this year at the airport, as I have waited in 1+ hour long lines at the airport, while people with the magic Nexus card have walked right past me. Oh. My right wrist is also fucked. Any time I do any heavy work with it - gardening, wrenching on my motorcycle, intensive writing sessions (aka, my day job) - I am in massive pain for days until i go get acupuncture, and it clears up. It's legitimately freaking me the fuck out. I had several days of wrist-immobilized-in-a-bandage to consider exactly how much my life would suck if it never went back to "normal" again.... and it is not a future I look forward to. Making a doctor's appointment now, even though I know that it'll be $1500 and "go see this specialist who will wind up costing $20,000, and not really resolve the problem to your satisfaction, or regain your previous level of agility/health."
Plus one on the Nexus card. The primary benefit is it gets you out of the line with people who fly every couple of years to the line full of people who want to get to the goddamn admiralty club so they can drink merlot and watch MSNBC. and the money goes to the people who caught Ahmed Rassam, not the guys who will defend the porno-scanners to the death. Tendons heal slowly, by the way. I currently have an annoying case of trigger finger in my right middle finger. It's been there for nine months. My wife and I went to a korean spa the day before christmas and the guy giving the compulsory massage got way the fuck too rugged with his joint pulling shenanigans. It's probably inflammation from something you did and a steady diet of aleve or an acute application of steroids will likely clear it up.
I forgot that I had an issue with my Achilles tendon, maybe 2 years ago. Had to wear an immobilizer boot for several weeks, then an ankle brace for a couple months. It's been completely healed and doesn't give me any more trouble, so I no longer think about it. That's a heartening thought... I've done this before, and it worked.