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So, I shattered my right wrist September 3 and sprained my left wrist. I was at work, playing basketball with a mentally-challenged kid and his friend. The ball went over my head, I went for it... and kept going. I heard the crunch when I came down on it. The kid yelled, "Are you okay?" then trotted off to get the ball and kept shooting baskets. His idiot friend ran off.
At this point my right arm had a noticeable bulge in it where there should have been none. Then came the fun part. I had to call the kid's mom and wait for her to come get him. I called my boyfriend but he was out of gas and cash and could not come get me.
Also he had just put a cake in the oven. More on that later.
I had to drive myself ten miles home, wait for the cake to come out of the oven, and then we had to drive across town to sell some of my video games so we'd have enough money for gas to get to the hospital and back -- an ambulance costs thousands and was not an option. Then we drove to a smaller regional hospital in hopes of a shorter wait time in the ER... and hit road work on the way there.
The runaround I got from the doctor that hospital referred me to is worth a thread of its own, but the process of being seen by him involved dozens of phone calls, and entirely too much time spent listening to the nasal Long Island honk of that pitbull he calls his surgery scheduler, who seems to hate all that work and all those goddamn patients who just won't give her any peace at all. This was why I stayed in the ER temporary splint for two and a half weeks. There were x-rays. There were ct scans.
They revealed a horror show: my wrist basically consisted of bone chips embedded in meat.
There was surgery, during which it was discovered my wrist was so badly impacted that it had to be stretched back out. I spent that night throwing up, unable to stand, and getting nothing whatsoever out of the morphine drip. I spent the next day groaning, and a week later I went back to the doctor and got to see my arm without the splint... and wished I hadn't. I have plates holding my wrist together, with pins the size of screwdrivers sticking out of it.
As you can imagine, it's all terribly uncomfortable. I have discovered that several thing especially suck about having a broken wrist, also. Here they are, in no particular order.
1 -- Turning over in bed is now only slightly less complicated than moving a road production of Cats from Boston to Honolulu. There are pillows that must travel with you, and positions that must be maintained.
2 -- You want to use your wrists. You lust to use your wrists. You watch movies starring people who use their wrists.
3 -- I have more metal in my arm than you'll find in your average engine block, and yet, over the course of rebuilding me better, faster, and stronger, the doctors were not considerate enough to install a data port or even an electrical outlet.
4 -- Everyone wants to know what happened. For about a week I said it was a tragic confetti accident, then I said I'd been attacked by ducks, blamed it on a mosquito bite, and now I'm blaming it on having refused to eat lima beans all these years.
5 -- You plan your day around bowel movements, as wiping your own ass is about the only thing you can still do for yourself. But that involves having to take the brace off the sprained wrist, then do your business, wash your hand, dry your hand, and put the brace back on. Do you want to do all that more often than you have to? No, and so you save up for a big finish.
6 -- I had to cut my waist-length hair, of which I was quite proud. On the one hand I miss it, but on the other I now bear a marked resemblance to actor Mark Ryder, and I'm okay with that.
7 -- As you ride around as someone else's passenger (as you sure as hell can't drive yourself anywhere) you quickly learn that potholes, railroad tracks, and speed bumps are not your friends.
8 -- Likewise sneezing.
9 -- Sweat the slightest bit and your cast starts to give off a smell like something died of explosive diarrhea in there.
10 -- At intervals you will go stir-crazy and will wish to run around and scream and flail. You don't dare run lest you trip and break something else. You don't scream because it's the middle of the day and decent people are resting. You don't flail because you can't.
At this point my right arm had a noticeable bulge in it where there should have been none. Then came the fun part. I had to call the kid's mom and wait for her to come get him. I called my boyfriend but he was out of gas and cash and could not come get me.
Also he had just put a cake in the oven. More on that later.
I had to drive myself ten miles home, wait for the cake to come out of the oven, and then we had to drive across town to sell some of my video games so we'd have enough money for gas to get to the hospital and back -- an ambulance costs thousands and was not an option. Then we drove to a smaller regional hospital in hopes of a shorter wait time in the ER... and hit road work on the way there.
The runaround I got from the doctor that hospital referred me to is worth a thread of its own, but the process of being seen by him involved dozens of phone calls, and entirely too much time spent listening to the nasal Long Island honk of that pitbull he calls his surgery scheduler, who seems to hate all that work and all those goddamn patients who just won't give her any peace at all. This was why I stayed in the ER temporary splint for two and a half weeks. There were x-rays. There were ct scans.
They revealed a horror show: my wrist basically consisted of bone chips embedded in meat.
There was surgery, during which it was discovered my wrist was so badly impacted that it had to be stretched back out. I spent that night throwing up, unable to stand, and getting nothing whatsoever out of the morphine drip. I spent the next day groaning, and a week later I went back to the doctor and got to see my arm without the splint... and wished I hadn't. I have plates holding my wrist together, with pins the size of screwdrivers sticking out of it.
As you can imagine, it's all terribly uncomfortable. I have discovered that several thing especially suck about having a broken wrist, also. Here they are, in no particular order.
1 -- Turning over in bed is now only slightly less complicated than moving a road production of Cats from Boston to Honolulu. There are pillows that must travel with you, and positions that must be maintained.
2 -- You want to use your wrists. You lust to use your wrists. You watch movies starring people who use their wrists.
3 -- I have more metal in my arm than you'll find in your average engine block, and yet, over the course of rebuilding me better, faster, and stronger, the doctors were not considerate enough to install a data port or even an electrical outlet.
4 -- Everyone wants to know what happened. For about a week I said it was a tragic confetti accident, then I said I'd been attacked by ducks, blamed it on a mosquito bite, and now I'm blaming it on having refused to eat lima beans all these years.
5 -- You plan your day around bowel movements, as wiping your own ass is about the only thing you can still do for yourself. But that involves having to take the brace off the sprained wrist, then do your business, wash your hand, dry your hand, and put the brace back on. Do you want to do all that more often than you have to? No, and so you save up for a big finish.
6 -- I had to cut my waist-length hair, of which I was quite proud. On the one hand I miss it, but on the other I now bear a marked resemblance to actor Mark Ryder, and I'm okay with that.
7 -- As you ride around as someone else's passenger (as you sure as hell can't drive yourself anywhere) you quickly learn that potholes, railroad tracks, and speed bumps are not your friends.
8 -- Likewise sneezing.
9 -- Sweat the slightest bit and your cast starts to give off a smell like something died of explosive diarrhea in there.
10 -- At intervals you will go stir-crazy and will wish to run around and scream and flail. You don't dare run lest you trip and break something else. You don't scream because it's the middle of the day and decent people are resting. You don't flail because you can't.
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