April 01, 2015

How to survive several weeks one hand in a cast part II

27 days. That is how long the cast has been on now and it may stay for much much longer. Scaphoid fractures take a long time to heal, but when the cast is yours, attached to your body part, it does not sound good at all. I have no pain in the hand, the fracture site caused minimum amount of pain anyway. The cast has been the root cause of miserable existence. First it got wet in the shower. Soaking wet so that water was dripping all over the place and continued to do so until I arrived at work. The new cast was comfortable for a couple of days, after that it started to get awfully tight and my fingers used to swell up all the time. There was a feeling of constant heaviness and that something wasn't right. I visited the ER, only to find out that I would have had to wait for quite a long time to be seen and I thought damn, I'll go home and sleep and hope for the best. Will I still have any blood circulating in my hand in the morning?
Yes, blood was circulating all right, but I had a severe splitting headache, and could not go to work. I slept until late and felt quite a lot better when I woke up. The hand... well, it was all still intact, the cast was on, even though I had had a dream that the cast was no longer there.
I suffer from muscle twitching and weird involuntary movements under the cast.
My arm itches and protests its lack of exercise and the usual work I do: typing, horseback riding, cooking etc. I have almost forgotten what it feels like to have a pair of hands.

Things I can still do: talk on the phone, drive a car (carefully), watch movies, walk, run (kind of bouncy, hurts my hand and makes it swell up), have a chat with my horse, go to work (but not really do much there), sleep (and dream about days when I had no cast) and eat with my left hand. Write in legible capital letters, slowly.
Things I can't do: cut my nails, apply body lotion, have a decent shower. Have a proper relaxing sleep.

Things I can also do: ask for a second opinion- which is what I will do in the next few weeks. I'm totally ready to get rid of this cast. Soon. I may just about to reach 6 weeks in a cast, but probably not much longer than that.

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