health – Page 13 – dangermouse.net

Hardware and an unexpected acquaintance

I took a longish walk with Scully this morning, to the hardware store (Bunnings), which is a few kilometres away. I had a couple of things I wanted to buy, so it was a good excuse to take her for a long walk.

When I got there, there were police, an ambulance, and a fire engine, attending a crash that happened on the intersection right outside Bunnings. It’s a T-junction with the streets, with the Bunnings car park driveway forming it into a four-way crossroad intersection. Traffic lights control cars coming out of Bunnings, and there’s a pedestrian light controlling pedestrians crossing the driveway. I was waiting to cross at the pedestrian light to get across the driveway to the pedestrian entrance to Bunnings. The green “walk” signal came on and the “walk now” beeps went off, I stepped out into the driveway…. and a van waiting to go revved up and came right at me, screeching to a stop before it hit me….

Only then did I realise that police were actively controlling the intersection for car traffic, signalling them to ignore the traffic lights and go when waved ahead. Not driving a car at the time, I hadn’t been watching what the police were doing – rather I was concentrating on the pedestrian signal at the crossing so that I could cross safely. The police just happened to wave the cars in the driveway to go right at the moment that the pedestrian light went green! Fortunately there was no accident, and I scurried across with Scully safely.

I’ve been exercising and massaging my hand again today. The pain seems to be fading slowly, and the hand is getting stronger and more flexible again. I took a golf club (a wedge) and some balls over to a nearby park and hit a few shots to test out how the hand would hold up playing golf. It was a little sore, but I felt like I could hit fairly well. I might try a round with my friend next week.

The other notable thing today happened at another park a short drive away, where I take Scully for exercise and to socialise with other dogs. There’s a regular group of dog owners who assemble there around 4pm every day – mostly retired people, but a few younger owners. I’ve been going there for over a year and know all the regular dogs and their owners, although only in a casual manner.

Today I was walking with one of them and chatting, and they mentioned something about James. I didn’t know who they were referring to, so I said, “Sorry, James who?”

“James Wood, the Supreme Court Judge. You know, with Pippa.” (Pippa is a cream coloured poodle)

Me: “Ohhh! Jim! … He’s a judge??”

Not just any judge. New South Wales Supreme Court Judge James Wood, OA, QC, chair of both the NSW Law Reform Commission and NSW Sentencing Council, and Royal Commissioner of the NSW Police Royal Commission.

Wow, I had no idea.

New content today:

Making the hand better

My hand was a lot better overnight, as in easier to sleep without being uncomfortable because of the bandages. But it’s still very bruised and sore today, and I’ve been spending some time massaging it firmly as the doctor advised, which just makes it feel more sore. But there’s definite improvements in strength and flexibility since yesterday, so that’s good. I can do almost anything I could before, except things that require significant left hand strength, such as opening difficult jars.

I made some Darths & Droids comics today, and converted another Sydney Walk photo essay into a web page, this one titled: Artarmon, Naremburn, St Leonards grunge.

In the mail today I received a small bicycle light which I bought to try attaching to Scully at night, so we can see her. It turns out that the light is way too bright. Your eyes adjust to the light and it’s not possible to see Scully herself at all. I might try covering the lights with tape to filter it down a bit.

New content today:

Stitches are out

I had my appointment this morning to inspect my healing hand and have the stitches out. I went to the hospital for 08:15 and was seen to after a short wait. First a hand physiotherapist saw me and removed the bandage. He checked the fingers for sensation and range of motion, and that the wound had closed properly.

Next a doctor saw me and inspected the wound. She determined the stitches could e taken out. She also told me to begin a program of massaging and exercising the hand as often as possible, to break up the scar tissues and adhesions and improve the range of movement. She said to massage it firmly, even though it hurts, as much as I can stand before it gets too painful.

I took this opportunity to ask her, “So, can I play the piano now?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “Great! I couldn’t play before.”

She completely ignored that and turned the conversation to something else. She may have been trying to suppress an eyeroll.

Now… sure, she’s a hand doctor, and she’s probably heard people attempt that joke a hundred or more times, but for me it’s (hopefully) the only chance I’ll ever get to use that joke in my whole life. The least she can do is politely pretend to laugh. Heck, if I was training hand doctors, reacting to that joke would be part of the bedside manner that they’d have to nail to pass their final exams.

After the doctor, a younger guy took over and removed the stitches carefully with tweezers and a scalpel. It was a bit tricky with a few of them, as the knot was embedded under a protruding fold of skin, but he got there in the end. It turned out I had a total of twelve stitches, not the ten that I’d heard stated on the day of the operation. He also gave me advice on how to massage the hand and stretch it to improve the mobility and strength over the next few weeks, advising again to do as much as possible within my pain threshold.

I was out of the hospital by just after 9 o’clock. To celebrate having the bandages off, I had a pie on the way home. 😄

At home, I worked on converting another of my Sydney photo walks to a web page, and this was a very long one. I also added a lot of historical research. This should be an interesting one because it illustrates the walk most of the way from where I live to the Sydney Opera House.

And I’ve also been studiously massaging my hand muscles to reduce the scar tissue. It hurts like hell when I’m doing it, and takes several minutes to calm down afterwards. But already I can see an improvement in the range of motion, so that’s positive. Now to keep it up for the next few weeks…

New content today:

Handy hand day

My bandaged hand gave me grief during the night, with some pain that kept me awake a bit. The thumb had become bruised looking and tender, and there were areas that felt a bit numb. It was a little bit concerning, and the fact that it’s my hand meant that I really didn’t want to risk not seeking medical attention if there was any possibility of something serious happening. And given that it was Friday and this coming weekend is a long weekend with a public holiday on Monday, I didn’t want to have to end up in emergency on the weekend rather than the hand clinic (which keeps more normal hours).

So I phoned the hand clinic and described what was happening, and asked if this was normal and nothing to worry about, or if it was potentially a problem. The doctor there asked me to come into the hospital so they could have a look. I went in, and after a short wait (maybe 20 minutes), a doctor examined my hand, removing the bandage and inspecting the stitches and the bruising around the hand. He said it looked to be healing normally and the hand looked fine, with no infections. He said the bruising was to be expected, and prodded various parts of my thumb to check the numbness. He said it was localised to an area that was not concerning, and may have been caused by the tightness of the bandage pressing on a nerve, which matches my experience with the bandage pressing a little painfully on the inside of the base of the thumb.

A nurse then cleaned and rebandaged my hand, with a lighter dressing that isn’t quite as tight, so I now have a bit more movement. It feels much better than the old one. So all seems good! I still have my appointment on Tuesday to have the stitches removed.

This evening I’m playing my fortnightly board games night with my friends, in our current COVID-safe online mode. We’ve played some games of Dice Forge, Seven Wonders, and now Kingdomino.

New content today:

Blurry days

The last several days are starting to blur together in a melange of restricted left hand mobility, taking Scully for walks, and mostly working on Darths & Droids. We’ve done a lot of story planning in the past week, and I’ve written thousands of words of notes. Today I switched to actually writing scripts for comics and assembling comics, which are needed for the next week or so of publication.

I also spent a bit of time updating one of the old Sydney walks I did with a couple of new photos of an historical building. I only learnt about this building while doing research for the photos that I had taken earlier, and I decided I had to go back and find it and get some photos. It’s an old stable that was part of a 19th century estate – you can read the history and see the photos here (scroll down near the bottom for the “Valetta” stables).

My hand has been giving me some pain today, and last night while trying to sleep. I keep trying to do little tasks using my left hand, and end up with some sort of muscle twitch that aches for a while. I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have full movement or strength in it yet.

New content today:

Doing things one-handed

So there are a lot of things you can’t easily do with one hand out of commission. Washing yourself is tricky, especially since I have to keep my left hand dry. My wife helped me put a plastic bag over my left hand and tape it so I could have a shower, but then I realised I couldn’t wash my right arm. And squeezing shampoo out of a bottle into your one good hand is really difficult.

The good news is that when I woke up in the morning, all of the numbness from the anaesthetic had worn off overnight and I had full sensation in all fingers and thumb again. The thumb and forefinger had still been a bit numb when I went to sleep. And there’s not much pain. But I can’t really use my left hand for anything that requires any strength at all – I can’t hold anything in it or put any pressure on it.

I worked a bit on Darths & Droids today, managing to make a strip, although using Photoshop one-handed is a challenge as so many of the commands involve multi-key combos or holding down keys while clicking and dragging.

My wife had to do the grocery shopping, while I minded Scully, after she finished her work shift at lunch time. (I’ve been doing all the shopping recently.) And we went out for dinner tonight for the first time since COVID restrictions shut restaurants back in March. We had Indian food, and it was delicious. The waiter, seeing my hand bandaged up and in a sling, offered to bring me a spoon to help eating, but I said I’d be fine with a knife and fork, and sort of managed okay, using one utensil at a time.

And relaxed tonight watching The Last Jedi with my wife, to prepare for a home viewing of Rise of Skywalker on the weekend, which she missed seeing at the cinema last year.

New content today:

Hand update

So, after yesterday’s exciting events, I went back to the hospital at 7:30 this morning. I had to wait a while until a doctor saw me. She removed the overnight plaster and unwrapped the bandages and inspected the wound. It bled a bit so she wrapped it up again within a few minutes, but I got a good look and some photos. She tested motion and sensation in my fingers and thumb, which were all fine. And I got to see the x-rays taken last night, which showed no damage to any bones.

After this inspection they scheduled me for surgery later in the morning. They said it could be done with local anaesthetic and I’d be released in the afternoon. I had a bit of a wait, until almost 11 o’clock, and all the while being unable to eat or drink anything (since dinner last night), so I got pretty hungry, as well as bored of just sitting around and waiting.

Eventually I went in and the surgery didn’t take very long, with me conscious the whole time, although they had a screen up so I couldn’t see what they were doing. I emerged with the hand bandaged up and still numb, but that’s worn off now and it aches a bit. They put in ten stitches, although I won’t see them until a follow-up appointment in 2 weeks when they’ll remove the bandages. Until then I have to keep the hand and bandages dry.

They brought me some sandwiches and water while I was in recovery, and gave me a prescription for oral antibiotics. By 2:30pm I was allowed to go home. Which makes a total of 11 hours in the hospital since yesterday.

My wife had to cook dinner tonight, since my left hand is useless for the time being, bandaged and in a sling to keep it elevated. I normally do 99% of the cooking, so this was a bit of an adventure, but she did well, making miso chilli Brussels sprouts with a little direction from me, adding sesame seeds and pine nuts on her own initiative, which worked well with it.

Now to hope I can sleep okay with the bandage and the low level pain. They said to take paracetamol or ibuprofen, so I’ll have some before bed.

New content today:

Sliced

Well. I was planning to write about yet another day spent trawling through footage from The Force Awakens and writing Darths & Droids story planning notes. But around 5pm I started preparing dinner. For the dish I was planning, I needed to cut the core stem out of a whole cauliflower. I used one of my brand new super-sharp kitchen knives…

My hand slipped and the knife sunk deep into my left hand, into the fleshy area between the thumb and forefinger. It immediately started bleeding profusely, and I knew I’d need to get stitches as I could see the size of the wound. My wife had gone outside a while ago to walk Scully, so I was home alone. With one good hand, I rinsed the wound, but it kept bleeding copiously, so I grabbed a tea towel and wrapped it tight to try to stop the bleeding, then went next door to our neighbours and knocked on the door, said I needed to get to the hospital and asked them to contact my wife. One of them drove me to the hospital right away, while his wife phoned my wife to let her know what was happening.

I was triaged in emergency right away and the triage nurse applied a quick bandage to stop the ongoing bleeding. I was taken to the treatment area, where after a bit of a wait a doctor examined my hand. She said the wound was deep enough that she wanted to consult with a hand specialist. She used a lot of saline and antiseptic to rinse it out – very quickly, because it was still oozing copious blood – then she bandaged it up again.

After another wait she said they were scheduling surgery for me, so a surgeon could check the wound and see if there were any severed tendons or nerves or blood vessels that might require microsurgery, and clean it out properly before stitching it up. Then after some more waiting she came back and told me that the surgery is scheduled for 7:30am tomorrow, so in the meantime she would pack the wound and bandage it up to try to stop the bleeding, and then put my forearm and hand in a cast to keep it still overnight, and then I could go home, to return in the morning. She also gave me an IV of antibiotics.

Meanwhile my wife had arrived during all this, and just after 9pm we left and she drove me home. So, I’m now here, left arm in plaster, typing one-handed, trying to chill out enough to go to sleep soon after the adrenaline of the evening. And I have surgery to look forward to in the morning.

New content today:

Working from home means less work

My wife had a hard morning, with her work-from-home setup having technical issues for several hours, resulting in a lot of frustration and lost time, which spilled over to me not being able to concentrate on much. I worked on some more Darths & Droids comics, but didn’t get as much done as I would have hoped.

I took Scully for a walk. While letting her run up and down the grassy area across the street, one of our neighbours walked past, and we had a semi-shouted conversation from several metres apart. He said he’d gone down to the golf course this morning, only to find a big “closed” sign there. All golf courses across Australia have been closed from midnight last night, as part of the country’s coronavirus suppression strategy.

The restrictions put in place here are pretty limiting. It’s basically nobody is allowed to leave their home except for (1) buying essential supplies, (2) medical or safety reasons, (3) to go to work if unable to work from home, and (4) for exercise. And a few other sensible things like children visiting separated parents which don’t apply to me. And there are severe penalties for violators – fines up to $11,000 and up to 6 months in prison. Police have been patrolling areas such as beaches and have been handing out (lesser level) fines to several people today. So this is not an order to be messed with for frivolous reasons.

So I’ve been getting out for walks around the neighbourhood for exercise, both for me and Scully. But apart from that it’s been confinement, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

New content today:

Working from home

My wife started working from home today, as part of Sydney’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means both her and Scully are home during the working week (since she normally takes Scully to the office with her – Scully is much loved as the office dog), when I’m normally here by myself. It’s a bit of a change, but it wasn’t too bad. We mostly kind of ignored each other as we went about our business, so as not to disturb one another.

At one point I went for a walk to get out and stretch my legs in the sunshine. I walked over to the suburb of Greenwich, where I spotted this cool home-made climbing tree for kids.

I walked down to the water, at Bay Street Wharf:

And across to the adjacent Bayview Park, where someone has their seaplane berthed:

And here’s a view of the park, looking down to the water. Pretty nice!

Apart from the walk, I mostly worked on Darths & Droids comics today – coming up with strip titles and editing HTML code and stuff. In between keeping up to date with all the massive changes around here to deal with COVID-19.

New content today: