Well, as some of you may or may not know, I have broken a bone in my left hand/wrist area. It's my scaphoid bone that is shaped slightly like a banana (x-ray doc's words, not mine).
This all came to pass almost 2 weeks ago when I was cycling home from work and a woman decided to walk out right in front of me (she was facing me mind, full on, just saw through me!) and I didn't have a chance to break, just swerved and ended up going into some metal railings. Now, I would like to state here & now that I did NOT fall off my bike! I merely put up my left hand to stop my whole body smashing into it and felt my thumb get pushed back a tad too far. I continued to hobble home, still cycling though in some pain, and convinced myself that the pain was down to the fact that it was swollen, bruised & probably a bit sprained or something. I had just gone into a fence after all. The evening was spent doing as little as possible involving that hand.
It wasn't until the next day when a work colleague convinced me to go to the pharmacist after work to ask about appropriate support that I thought something may be wrong. She took one look at it, refused to let me buy any support and told me to go straight to A & E to get it X-Rayed... tad worrying that!
2 1/2 hours later, 2 trips to x-ray and countless times wishing I had a book or covertly staring at the injuries people had I was informed that I did in fact have a fractured bone and require a plaster cast. The nurse then proceeded to tell me that most scaphoid fractures aren't seen until weeks later due to people going down the same route I initially did and fobbing it off as a sprain, thus opening the person up to a number of complications in the healing process. On top of this it turns out that sometimes these sort of breaks can be notoriously hard to spot first time round (hence the second trip to x-ray that day). So really, all in all I had a relatively good hospital experience compared to some of the horror stories you hear about the NHS. My injury was spotted and treated reasonably quickly so thanks to the NHS staff who treated me :)
What this means however is that I'm now pottering about my flat unable to wash up quickly (one hand being unable to get wet), carry heavy objects such as a kettle, open bottles quickly or have a quick shower and wash my hair as normal. This also means that typing has slowed down to one-handed speed and reading is impractically difficult as my hand is positioned and cast in such a way that it won't support & hold open a book very easily :( This will last for at least 6 more weeks, joys :P
The bike, by the way, is perfectly fine!
This all came to pass almost 2 weeks ago when I was cycling home from work and a woman decided to walk out right in front of me (she was facing me mind, full on, just saw through me!) and I didn't have a chance to break, just swerved and ended up going into some metal railings. Now, I would like to state here & now that I did NOT fall off my bike! I merely put up my left hand to stop my whole body smashing into it and felt my thumb get pushed back a tad too far. I continued to hobble home, still cycling though in some pain, and convinced myself that the pain was down to the fact that it was swollen, bruised & probably a bit sprained or something. I had just gone into a fence after all. The evening was spent doing as little as possible involving that hand.
It wasn't until the next day when a work colleague convinced me to go to the pharmacist after work to ask about appropriate support that I thought something may be wrong. She took one look at it, refused to let me buy any support and told me to go straight to A & E to get it X-Rayed... tad worrying that!
2 1/2 hours later, 2 trips to x-ray and countless times wishing I had a book or covertly staring at the injuries people had I was informed that I did in fact have a fractured bone and require a plaster cast. The nurse then proceeded to tell me that most scaphoid fractures aren't seen until weeks later due to people going down the same route I initially did and fobbing it off as a sprain, thus opening the person up to a number of complications in the healing process. On top of this it turns out that sometimes these sort of breaks can be notoriously hard to spot first time round (hence the second trip to x-ray that day). So really, all in all I had a relatively good hospital experience compared to some of the horror stories you hear about the NHS. My injury was spotted and treated reasonably quickly so thanks to the NHS staff who treated me :)
What this means however is that I'm now pottering about my flat unable to wash up quickly (one hand being unable to get wet), carry heavy objects such as a kettle, open bottles quickly or have a quick shower and wash my hair as normal. This also means that typing has slowed down to one-handed speed and reading is impractically difficult as my hand is positioned and cast in such a way that it won't support & hold open a book very easily :( This will last for at least 6 more weeks, joys :P
The bike, by the way, is perfectly fine!
2 comments:
*pats head* Oh hey, at least the bike is fine! :P
True, it is a lovely bike :) That was what worried me most to begin with!
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