Thursday 7 March 2013

Ticking away ... Day 858 ~ mallet finger ...

As you may have noticed elsewhere I have been out walking for an hour or two at a time for five or six days and generally I'm doing OK.

 I'm off to have a bit of a check-up with the Lymphoedema Department at Ashgate Hospice tomorrow and then I've off for my monthly cancer check-up on Wednesday [after a bloodtest on Tuesday].

As if this wasn't enough I also now have to factor into the mix a visit to the hand clinic at Derby Royal Hospital.

It all started last night when I was taking off the compression stocking on my right leg. I slid both my hands firmly down my right calf to slide the stocking off ... but something didn't quite work out right. My left hand slipped and there was a sudden pain in the middle finger. 

The tip of the finger wouldn't straighten up ... 

My mallet finger

 I bent it this way.

I bent it that.

It wouldn't straighten.

Was it dislocated. It didn't feel broken. In fact it didn't feel painful.

I jumped in the shower and as I washed my hair I was aware that it felt different. So I tootled along to the Minor Injuries Unit at the Whitworth Hospital. 

"That's mallet finger ..." said one of the nurses, Sheila "... you've torn a tendon". She fixed me up with a splint. A splint that will have to stay on for six to eight weeks. I can't bend my finger for six to eight weeks.



Mallet finger in splinter ...

 If [when] I wash my left hand I have to keep my finger flat on a flat surface. 

I've had an x-ray this morning and there's no broken or chipped bone which would apparently have been better as bones heal better/quicker than tendons.

So ... Derby here I come ...

8 comments:

  1. You wouldn't think you could injure yourself taking a stocking off,what bad luck Charlie, you have enough going on without that.Hope everything goes well with your check-ups.Ann

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    1. Thank you Ann ... like most things, it's a case of coping. Hopefully, I'm coping.

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  2. When I saw the title of your post and the first photo, I thought you were going to say you'd hit your finger with a mallet while doing some DIY job around the house!! It's amazing how an injury can occur even when doing the most innocuous of tasks. I once put my back out painfully and was hardly able to move for several weeks.....picking up the cat!!!

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    1. I was talking about how silly accidents are to the nurse at the local hospital. She said with a smile that they keep her in a job ...

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  3. I tell you what, Charlie, you could "flip people the bird" and quite legitimately claim you were scratching your nose, with that splint attached! Think of the fun you could have over those 6-8 weeks!

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    1. I was just about to show my damaged finger to the nurse in the lymphoedema department at the local hospice this morning Jenny ... then realised I had better not make a fist with just that one middle finger sticking up. However unintentional it was, it wouldn't have looked good.

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  4. I am very happy that you are out walking again. I hear you about tendons being worse than breaks. I am still favoring parts of my left leg from my tumble off of that step stool over 3 months ago. You finger must feel gruesome.

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    1. WE have something else in common ~ torn tendons. My finger stays in its mallet splint except when I take it out once a day to wash it whilst all the time keeping it level with the rest of my finger. What a nuisance.

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