Injuries

Having recently injured myself i thought this would be an appropiate first topic to blog about. Firstly in reading this please i have full mental capacity and am simply only clumsy. At a scifi event i was running up some stair when i tripped. I was still holding onto the rail and as i fell forwards i knew i had hurt my thumb. I know i fell up stairs, you are now in 2 camps, its easy i've fallen up stairs before or you fell upstairs how? But it happened. Intially i denied the injury if i didnt look at it it didnt exist this logic was flawed. After applying RICE. (No thats not actual rice but the acronym Rest Ice Compression Elevation) to have continued pain and swelling i knew the remained of my saturday night would be spent in the accident and emergency department.

The hospital was in Northampton full of drunks and the elderly with the odd road traffic accident lying around. Following us in was a drunken sucidal 17 year old girl who had failed to kill herself and had a personal police guard. We found it annoying at the time but i worry where society is going if this is the future.Next in was a man with a cut across his face also intoxicated somehow this facial wound prevented him from being seated in the waiting room as he paced and panted across the floor. Going to xray there was a woman who had lost a £800 diamond and was ignoring the neckbrace and spinal precautions in order to look for it. Despite the fact there was a very real possibility that even the slightest movement might have paralysed her from the neck down. If it was high enough it could have killed her. For a £800 diamondshe was willing to risk this. I still struggle with the fact that £800 is the price she would have paid for her mobility.

After my xray in which the doctor gave it a cursory viewing before annoucing i needed to go to fracture clinic i got a splint and a sling and sent on my way.

On the monday i was in fracture clinic, my xrays were reportedly crap he could barely tell if i even had a thumb on them so i was sent for a MRI scan.

On the wednesday i was in the scanner 0830 having dragged myself out of bed about 20minutes earlier to get dressed before going to the hospital. In the scanner my arm was encase in a special cage and i had to enter into the scanner in the superman position. Needless to say whilst not the most comfy of positions i still managed to get back to sleep only to be awakened by the staff who had been trying to get me to answer question when i hadnt  answered they'd grown concerned. With promises that i wouldnt sleep in the scanner again it finished and i went home. At 1230 i got a call i needed an ultrasound, and i needed one urgently, at 1400 i was back at the hospital. Luckily it wasnt as bad as they feared there was no damage to the blood vessel or bone. I had ruptured my ulnar colleteral ligament on my MCJ on my thumb, a grade 3. This means the ligament was torn away from the bone completely ripped and had also ripped from itself. My doctor the  said this was the worst thing i could do to my thumb short of amputating it. He presented me with 3 options.

1) leave it and gradually loose all feeling, and movement in my thumb
2) go into plaster for 6 weeks before undergoing surgery and injury as bad as mine wasnt going to heal naturally
3) surgery,

Guess what i chose?

My surgery was scheduled for the mondat afternoon, i was nbm from 7am but last on the list. we went to the hosptial at one. i was lucky the only bed they had was a sideroom. Mum went shopping when i got told i'd been moved i was first. I rang her telling her she had to come  back, she made it and i wasable to tell her that i loved her before going down.

In theatre i was taken to the aneastetic room,they didnt get the venflon in first time in the back of my hand but they managed second time in my forearm. then they grabbed the syringe full of white stuff and i was off.

I woke and it was cold, someone was talking asking about pain i told them i was cold and was shivering. They popped a bear hugger on me. The doctor came out told me it had gone well. They tool the oxygen off me but my saturation which is the oxygen level circluating in my blood dropped from 100% to only 75% so they put it quickly back on and we were off back to the ward.

Mum was delighted to see me. As i got there i realised it hurt bad so i got some painkiller and slept. Some time later i remembered that my hand had been operated on. It was in plaster and the skin i could see was pink. Then my bed took off and i was flying, i dont know where just that i was flying on my bed. Then i needed the toliet. I buzzed the nurse who told me i could walk by myself i was just a thumb (despite being on oxygen, my arm in a sling, blood pressure cuff on, and a flying bed) i told her i didnt mind walking to the toliet but she had to show me how to land my bed first. She took pity on me aiding me in my quest.

The next day i was discharged my hand in plaster, i wasn't allowed to work due to my job needed 2 thumbs. In the first 2 weeks i was out of balence i fell over twice, once cutting my eyebrow open, i didnt know how wobbly you could become. Then the unbelievable happened.
Somehow in my sleep i managed to split my cast totally into 2 halves. My doctor said he'd had 2 patients before me who had managed the same feet. One had been in a car crash the other had fallen down stairs. I came out with quite possible the most bulky plaster in history.

After 4 weeks i went into a splint then nothing. Currently i'm struggling through physiotheapry andto get rid of scabby skin from being under the plaster then the sweaty splint its not pleasent.

There is a message in here somewhere,

thanks for reading feel free to comment