Entries from February 2007 ↓

I’ve been fairly moody the last couple of days. I found out from the specialist on Friday that because of the nature and location of the bone, scaphoid fractures are notoriously slow to heal and can cause a lot of complications if not allowed to heal correctly. Which for me means more time in plaster.

I’m finding so many things frustrating. It frustrates me that I can’t write, it bothers me that I keep making typing errors and it takes me twice as long, it drives me nuts that my arm is wasting away and there’s nothing I can do about it, it annoys me that with all this free time I can’t do anything, it makes me cranky that I can’t ride my bike, it gets me aggro that I have to be so damn dependent on everyone, it’s just really bloody infuriating to be so damned incapacitated.

*sigh*

And now I’m polluting my blog with this whining crap. Awesome.

Have you ever heard that cliche about being careful about what you wish for?

I went to see a doctor today in the orthopedic outpatient clinic for a check up and poke of my wrist after the other Sunday’s aerobatics. After a bit of chatter and a review of my x-rays, it seems that I may not have had the full story when I left the emergency department that fateful afternoon. The diagnosis I was given at the time was that I had chipped my ulna (pinky-side wrist bone) and fractured my radius (thumb-side wrist bone), a solid days work. However as it turns out, not only is my ulna thoroughly chipped, i have not one, but two significant fractures of my radius as well as a previously unmentioned fracture of my scaphoid (lower hand bone on the thumb side).

So this means that my hand is actually broken in four places, not the two I initially believed, bringing my life-long bone fracture count up to (you guessed it) eleven. The irony is suffocating.

All in all though I am still well and hopefully this is not some strange omen of the coming of my untimely demise. As for the hand, I stay in this plaster cast for one more week, then I change to a second cast for the following three weeks, after which I jump on the physiotherapy wagon and work my way back to unhindered throttle movement once again.

These things couldn’t be easy, could they? Still, such is life. If breaking bones weren’t such a pain in the ass, all the kids would be doing it.

Sometimes when you’re put in certain situations out of the ordinary, you get the chance to see what you’re really made of and to find parts of yourself deep down that you never knew you had. Like allergies.

After managing to turn various portions of my skin a half-cooked lobster shade of red while exploring Rottnest Island yesterday with a fellow tourist - an adventure that yielded us a single photograph of a particularly uninterested quokka, I returned home and hoisted my bottle of aloe vera gel from the fridge that I had purchased for just such occasions. After a liberal smearing of the cool, soothing squishy stuff I went and found a comfortable surface on which to pass out.

Interior - The following day. I wake up this morning to find that various parts of my body seem to have had a curious reaction to the aloe gel, having swollen to some degree. Picture collagen injections as applied to my entire head, as well as my left hand. After discovering that some of my appendages now resembled the kid from Willy Wonka that ate the magic chewing gum, I decided to consult some references on what exactly aloe vera gel should do. A brief inquiry revealed that aside from the soothing and healing jazz, effects should, as it turns out, include reduction of swelling.

That is not what I’ve got.

So, making use of my finely honed powers of deduction, I have concluded that my symptoms may in fact be abnormal and might be classed as a “reaction”, possibly of the allergic variety.

This leaves me now as the semi-inflated one-armed bandito. I strike terror into the hearts of… well… something. Waffles maybe.

Well, care of last Sunday my life-long broken bone tally has shot to nine and my number of operable arms has dropped to one. Essentially my right wrist is busted in two places after an aerial dismount of my motorcycle at the track and before you ask, yes, the bike is ok. I think I’d like to get the bone count up to eleven or so before I die, ten’s too round a number and nine’s just a little too small. I think I might steer clear of outings to the track for a while though as it seems to be the source of my undoing rather than my time on the road, of which there is plenty.

I’ve made a bit of an effort to teach myself to write left-handed due to my current state of incapacitation, which currently serves me at a level which would be on par with most four year old colobus monkeys. That is to say - not well.

I also ended up at a card game last night, where although I managed to show great finesse at dealing with one arm, my most dynamic feat was the resounding manner in which I displayed my finely honed ability to suck arse at gambling. Thankfully there were minties to ease my troubled soul.

It’s now been around a hundred and eight hours since I’ve ridden a motorcycle and I’m starting to get edgy. It’s probably best that I let the nurses put the clamps on now, otherwise things might proceed to get slightly less than cheery.

Until next time, your rabid self.
Dwight