So it's day four. It's been 2 days since my surgery and I can honestly say that this has been the worst pain so far. I changed from Tylenol-3 to a handful Dilaudid hoping that it would help the pain. It actually did quite the opposite - my day was filled with cold sweats, headaches, nausea thanks to the pills so I've decided to switch back to the T3.
However, instead of bellyaching about the side effects from my drugs, I want to tell you about my day today. It wasn't very eventful today unfortunately, but while I was laying on the couch today texting a couple of my friends I noticed a trend in what people were saying to me, so I've put them into a few categories:
Jokes - It's incredible how many people dumb sprained pinky jokes (mind the pun), and I actually love it. I wish people made jokes this often when I wasn't injured. The most common one I hear is "Sprain a pinky", and I laugh every time.
"Omg, how did it happen" - I've told my story probably 1000 times, and a new detail arises every time I tell it.
Advice - So many people have advice to offer - which is usually helpful, but not always. I get told to "rest up" and "drink lots of fluids" 2 or 3 times a day.
"Get addicted to your drugs." - This one has definitely thrown me off. It usually seems to be specifically about Dilaudid most of the time, but I don't know how anyone could get addicted to that stuff I usually take a dozen at a time. All it did was make me feel sick and hate my life. I only took it for today and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep - which I couldn't do because I had to keep my pinky finger straight and elevated.
I had an interesting experience trying to let the dog out this afternoon. It turns out that a 80 pound black lab is harder to hold on to when you're using one pinky, trying to hook him on to his chain. He lunged forward because he thought he was hooked on, and I was incredibly close to stubbing my bad pinky. Safe to say, that was enough physical activity for me.
So surgery was yesterday and I was WAY too wrecked to write anything. That anesthesia is some serious shit bruhhhh.
At one point in the recovery room after surgery, someone gave me a lime cold thing. I could've sworn it was a dream - what a strange thing to get first thing after you wake up from leg surgery, right? Well, apparently it wasn't a dream.
They've put me in this temporary cast for now to allow for swelling. My orders are to keep my pinky higher than my heart, which is actually more difficult than you think. I ignored that for about an hour while I was at my desk on the computer, and could feel the cast getting tighter around my pinky - so, back to the couch for me.
The surgeon gave me a prescription for Dilaudid, but I'm not big on taking pain killers so I've been taking dozens at a time and writing blogs. I realized about half way through today that they just aren't cutting it, so I'm going to start on the Dilaudid tonight and hope to hell they don't make me all loopy and weird and make me write more blogs.
I also learned that it's insanely difficult to get around your house with one pinky. I tried hopping from the kitchen to the living room today with a glass of water and a pack of crackers in my hand. I spilled half my water all over myself, and dropped the crackers half way. Which meant, I had to put down the water, go back for the crackers, bend down to get them, get back up, and hobble my way back to the couch. Fortunately nobody was home, but it probably would've been one of the saddest sights anyone has ever seen.
I'm trying to keep the words down on these so I'm going to cut this one off for now.
Chad
Hi there.
I honestly don't expect anyone to read this, but I figured this would be a productive way to spend my time while my pinky is healing.
Last Friday (October 23rd, 2015) I was playing hockey at a local rink. I picked the puck up from an opposing player and got out on a break away, with the other player literally right on my heels. For a brief moment, the only thing I could think about was getting to the net as fast as I could and scoring a goal. Unfortunately, this resulted in me not thinking about stopping after I took my shot.
I rounded the back of the net still going full speed and lost my footing. Hitting the ice wasn't bad, but I went into the boards pinky first at full speed, which resulted in this bad boy:
I didn't know it at the time and assumed it was just a twisted my pinky, so I limped back to the dressing room and removed my gear about 20 minutes early. By the time the other guys finished playing and came into the dressing room, the pain had really started. I told my roommate I wanted to go to the hospital and get my pinky checked out - just to be sure I didn't really mess it up.
"If you needed to go to the hospital, I would've already brought you there. Just walk it off and if it's still bothering you in a couple weeks, go in and get it checked out." was his response.
Despite the wise advice of my not-so-medically-inclined roommate, I went in and sat in emergency for 4 hours, before throwing in the towel and going home to bed at 3:30am (it was a late hockey game).
The next day - with even worse pain - I went back in to the hospital and my suspicions were confirmed. I have what's known as a 'Massivesprained' pinky:
The short version is the my Finger is sprained at the top - which you can see in my initial X-ray - and the bottom where it meets my elbow. The membrane between my Pinky and my Wrist is torn, so essentially, skin and muscle are the only thing holding the Pinky in place. This was caused by the rotational force imposed on my hand when I hit the boards.
I have surgery tomorrow to place an 'anchor screw' in my pinky, and wrap 2 'tightrope ties' around the two bones to hold them together and make sure the membrane heals properly. This is my first surgery so we'll see how things go.
