Hand is out of commission

[elfs]

I'm getting a bit worried about my hand. I've had it wrapped and the thumb isolated and immobile, and it's still not getting better. The pain is less, but I've lost some range of motion in it as well. It's getting harder to use Emacs efficiently.

Yule is winding down finally. Omaha and Kouryou-chan are still working on the gingerbread house. Yamaraashi-chan got all four books in the Twilight series and is tearing through them as fast as she can. I'm in that mid-week cleanup phase where I'm going through old files and folders and figuring out what I can ditch and what I need to upgrade.

It's very hard to type with my hand like this. I might end up mostly doing drawing, since my right hand is in fine shape.

The snow is mostly gone. The weather's in the high-40's today and the roads are clear. Which is good because I have one thing to take back to the mall.

Comments

[solarbird]

Ours is maybe majority gone but there's still, hum, almost 12cm on the patio, and the roads are still snow-and-slush mix. The only place you see pavement is where I've shovelled.

Get that hand checked. Don't screw around where hand/arm damage is concerned. Not in your business.

[slutdiary.livejournal.com]

Drop me a note offline if you need some suggestions on specialists to help you with your hand.

Well Wishes...

[ladyallyn.livejournal.com]

Seconded!

The most common fracture from falling and trying to catch yourself is one of the itty bitty bones called the scaphoid. (You can tell how I know this, right... ?)

~85% of the time they'll put you in a brace and do nothing else til it heals -- then some PT. (this was me) ~15% of the time it can be a Much. Bigger. Deal. (this was El)

The only way to tell if you're a 15-percenter is to get it checked. If nothing else, a cool 'happy-plastic' conformed brace will make it MUCH easier to type with. Really.

Here's hoping this is one place where you're in the utterly common norm and not a 15-percenter. We like your exceptionalities where they are, thanks, this does not need to be one of them.

Re: Well Wishes...

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

Scaphoid was my guess too... I broke mine in 2001, though I was a very bad case. Nearly 2mm displacement, surgery for a Herbert screw insertion, 3 months in a cast, 1.5 months or so PT. (Yep, in that 15% I was.) I was fortunate and it healed properly and thoroughly.

My cousin, OTOH, just needed a brace and some PT.

It sounds like, if it is the scaphoid, it's one of the less severe cases, though IANAD. I just remember the pain from mine - it was severe.

Re: Well Wishes...

[ladyallyn.livejournal.com]

I probably wouldn't have had mine x-rayed, and didn't until about two weeks later, if it hadn't started interfereing with my work. The fine joystick control when using a microscope at someone's eyes is kinda critical. Pain isn't a good indicator for me because my pain threshold is stupid high.

El, who was in the 15%, was in the midst of a motorcycle tour through Germany and Bavaria and finished the tour. She told me every application of the brake was a new and different experience of sensation... anywhere from annoying to excrutiationg. She got the riot act upon her return (weeks later). It's a much bigger deal to fix later, as most things are.

Re: Well Wishes...

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

I fell down a couple of steps when I broke mine, and I must have gone into mild shock immediately, because I just lay there crying in pain. Passers-by helped me out and got me to hospital and contacted my boyfriend, who said when he arrived I was white as a sheet. Moving my hand was extremely painful.

I hadn't yet been seen by doctors (at this point it was 1.5hrs after injury with no pain meds), so he said let's see if we can get you some tylenol or something. We asked, and the nurse at admitting said, what, you haven't been seen yet? and immediately directed the receptionist to prepare my chart. I was whisked away to the back in a wheelchair and given a huge dose of demerol with a gravol chaser.

I'm amazed that El finished the tour! Darn right she should have been read the riot act.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

Quite a long while back, we had promised to help a friend move a few things. Then another friend called a beer outing. Happily, the first friend wanted to go too.

Unhappily, I'd had two nice dark largish beers and while I wasn't drunk, I was apparently literally tipsy. On the very last item, a barbell, my foot slipped off the bumper of the truck and I twisted my ankle.

Or so I thought. It wasn't bad -- I walked on it and finished the job, but it hurt. I figured it would pass in a few days and felt mostly stupid.

Six months later, it still bothers me once in a while. It turned out not to be my ankle, but some ligament that runs across the top of your foot. For four months I couldn't straighten the foot out without pain. I kept re-injuring it by sleeping on my stomach, having a kid jostle it...anything.

Two thoughts :
1) we heal more slowly and hurt weirder things as we age.
2) this makes it even more important to get early review of injuries.
(No, I didn't -- I absolutely refused to go see the doc. But then I don't have insurance until I spend $3000, I don't trust doctors for little stuff, and I'm much better at dispensing advice than taking it. :D ) I probably should have -- it still hurts sometimes, but it FINALLY started to heal in a meaningful way after 4 months or so.

[ladyallyn.livejournal.com]

...and are you still *sure* you didn't break a tarsal/metatarsal?

(says the girl who walked on the broken foot (and I /still/ don't know how I did it) for at least eight days and only had it x-rayed to convince the doctors that *I* worked for that, no, I really shouldn't be spending 10 hours a day on my feet)

My bone density, incidentally, for all the *little* bones I've broken is "exceptionally high" for almost no dairy consumption for more than half my life. The orthopods and I joke about how hard I play.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

Sure? No. But it's better now, at least mostly. :)

I may mention it at my annual. That's the only medical that IS covered before $3k, so I plan to make good use of it.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Haven't you at least had it x-rayed yet?

I played tennis with my hand that had a clean fracture for almost a week in my teens. Luckily I didn't manage to move the bone.

Take care of you.