Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Broken Hand

On August 23rd, the second day of school, I was watching a young 6th grader who is known for running away. I had hold of his hand at one point, but he pulled his hand away from mine and dashed for the door of the classroom. I chased after him and as I was going out the door I punched the metal door frame. There's only been 1 time in my life when I felt pain worse than that.

     At first I thought I had just jammed my knuckle; that's a little how it felt, just a little bit more intense. However the pain was enough that I was almost in shock. I vaguely remember the teacher following behind me and stopping the student as he was running away. I was just sort of frozen to the spot, cradling my hand to my chest. The teacher had me take my hand and go run it under cold water, then another teacher came by and offered to let me use her ice pack.

     After about 5 to 10 minutes, I realized that my hand was not getting any better. The second teacher that I had spoken with made arrangements with the teacher I work for to get me up to the office so that I could look into going to WorkMed. By then the shock was wearing off and I was starting to cry from the pain. I couldn't stop myself.

     I got a ride to WorkMed from the school officer. I joked around with him about getting a police escort to the doctor.

     At WorkMed, the doctor ordered an x-ray. The technician who took the x-ray told me that it was very definitely broken. He said that normally he wouldn't make that decision himself, but he was amazed at how obvious the break was.

     The doctor splinted my hand and I've been going back every 2 weeks to get x-rays. It has been nearly 2 months now. It took awhile for my hand to heal.

     The anti-inflammatory medication that they put me on caused my hands and feet to swell over the first weekend. When I spoke with the doctor the following Monday he suggested that it was possibly an allergic reaction. Once I went off the medication most of the extremities went back to their normal sizes. However, my left foot has been swelling for the last 2 months. I saw both my normal doctor and my WorkMed doctor about it. Both seemed to think that it was a result of another injury done to the top of my foot when I hurt my hand. X-rays were done and it was revealed that there was no break to the foot. The swelling on my foot is only now going back down. They never did find out for sure what was wrong with it.

     Today I went back to WorkMed for a follow up. As of now, I am able to take the splint off when I am NOT working so that I can begin to stretch out the muscles which have been locked in place for 2 months. However, I still need to use the splint while I am working and am limited with what I am allowed to do. Still, it's a start. I will return next Wednesday to see how my hand is doing and determine whether or not I will need physical therapy.