The Healing Power of Rest: Lessons from My Mummy Wrappings

“You’re becoming a mummy.”

So said my husband before rolling away from me in bed.

Moments before, he’d been fast asleep, so I quietly donned the rest of my nightly attire and joined him.

He’d awakened only long enough to see me in all my glory, make his statement laden with disappointment, and close the door to romance.

Apparently, mummies aren’t sexy.

You see, when others might get their “sexy” on, I choose splints.

Or mummy wraps.

Whatever.

They’re better at maintaining abstinence than a chastity belt.

It’s not my goal, but that’s how my husband interprets this part of my latest bedtime attire. I’ve added custom-made thumb “orthoses” to my carpal tunnel wrist splints to give my arthritic thumbs a rest.

I feel so sexy just typing that.

You’d think a scantily clad hitchhiker giving her husband two thumbs up might catch a ride. (Well, a hitchhiker in cute shorty pajamas giving her husband two thumbs up, anyway.)

Not so much.

Apparently, I talk with my hands. And my thumbs (or my mummy wraps) proclaim it’s time to rest.

Two thumbs up for what?

I became a mummy at the advice of my hand therapist.

At the time, I was in between surgeries—carpal tunnel release in my right hand and surgery to relieve basal thumb joint arthritis in my left. I worried the carpal tunnel release wasn’t healing well, and I feared more surgery, especially since the first one hadn’t gone well. I wanted to do everything possible to ensure success, so I followed all the therapist’s advice.

She suggested some tools—mainly for the kitchen (none for the bedroom)—to take the burden off my joints: an automatic can opener, spring-action scissors, jar and bottle openers, fat pens, and more.

She also made me thumb rests from moldable high-temperature plastic for each hand, the one on my right hand extending from my hand almost to my elbow to support my wrist.

These custom splints were white, as were the series of multiple strips of Velcro holding them in place, which, as my husband might have mentioned a time or five, makes me look like a mummy.

Rest is necessary. I’m not quite sure what my thumbs were doing at night when the rest of me was sleeping, but this mummy business was supposed to ensure they sleep when Mummy sleeps.

The arthritis in my left hand was far worse than in my right. My surgeon wanted to operate (of course), but since healing hadn’t gone well on the carpal tunnel release in my right hand, I was doing everything I could to avoid another surgery.

Which included looking like a mummy.

One of my colleagues said she dreamed she was keeping a monster away by spitting, and she awakened to find her face wet. Maybe my thumbs are acting out my dreams, too, perhaps sealing Ziploc Bags, sealing or removing Tupperware lids, or squeezing lemon wedges into my tea.

Or fastening buttons, pulling zippers, clasping earrings, or necklaces. Opening tea bag envelopes and bags of coffee. Removing the security seals from bottles of liquids…

When don’t we use our thumbs? And why is the saying “I’m all thumbs” negative? I wish I had two replacements!

But this is why I’m buying tools and dressing like a mummy at bedtime. Because rest will buy me refreshed thumbs.

I wasn’t buying it either.

What it took to convince me

But then I started feeling knee pain when I did the flutter kick in the pool or climbed the stairs to the gym’s second floor. Sharp knee pain.

So, I stopped doing so much kicking. I even took the elevator one floor up at the gym—where I’m trying to exercise! Riding to rest my knee instead of climbing seemed to defeat the purpose of going to the gym.

But I didn’t want to add permanent or worsening knee pain to my list of woes. Therefore, I tried to rest my knee so it would calm or heal or somehow extend the lifetime number of knee bends I’m allotted. I also did exercises to strengthen the muscles around my knee to protect it.

And do you know what happened? My knee pain disappeared.

It seemed so clear to me to rest to help my knee, but I was reluctant to do it for my thumbs. It seemed I always had work to do that depended on my thumbs.

I’ve somehow missed that rest—of my body, mind, and soul, not just my thumbs or knees—is one of God’s ten commands, one he followed when he created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” he clearly said (Exodus 20:7). Jesus later said the Sabbath was “made for man” (Mark 2:27).

As I wrap my thumbs in their mummy-like splints for resting at night, I’m reminded of that seventh day of rest made for man. Me. Rest is not just a physical necessity, but a spiritual one.

When I take the time to rest, I’m giving my body and my soul a break. I’m acknowledging I’m not in control, that God is working, even when I’m not.

This is a hard lesson for me to learn, as someone who values productivity and busyness. But as I look back on my journey with the carpal tunnel and arthritis, I realize that rest has been a crucial part of my healing process.

Not just my physical healing, but my spiritual healing as well. By trusting in God’s provision and rest, I’m reminded that I’m not alone, and that He is always working, even when I’m not.

Mummy wrappings optional.