So here’s the scenario. It’s Saturday night and I’ve had a long week. I hit the bars and tip back one or two too many. Stumbling out of the last bar, I find I can’t make it past the city park without landing on my nose, so I plop onto a park bench. Slinging an arm over the back of the bench to stabilize myself, I fall into a deep slumber.
Now it’s Sunday morning and the sun is shining, the birds are singing and I’ve got a splitting headache. My arm is where I left it last night, slung over the back of the bench. I haul it back in front of me, but something is wrong. When I try to extend (cock up) my wrist, it doesn’t go anywhere. In fact, it droops downward. Moreover, I can’t straighten my drooping fingers, either. As I investigate further, I find that the skin on the back of my hand is numb. What gives?
The problem is that I have injured the arm’s radial nerve. As a result, the muscles it controls and the skin-sensation it manages are out of commission. On its course from the spinal cord in the neck to the forearm and hand, the radial nerve–a bundle containing many individual nerve-fibers–spirals...