So it begins (continues?)

 January 14, 2022 (at least that’s the first day I have photo evidence)

I woke up with my left hand & wrist swollen and painful. I could move all my fingers and my thumb. A few positions caused the pain to increase but not by much. I checked my capillary refill because of the swelling. Cap refill <3 sec. After finishing my quick little assessment, I took my morning medication and headed to the bathroom, did my business, washed my hands-which, quite frankly, caused a lot more pain than I thought it should. I then let the dogs out & went outside with them.

I had Elara that day so I started looking through my drawers and the hall cabinet for a wrist brace. I KNEW I had one somewhere! Sure enough, way at the bottom, I found not only 1 but 2! One was just a neoprene sleeve, the other was an adjustable neoprene with a metal stay. I tried the one that was just neoprene but it was a bit tight and didn’t give enough support, so I settled on the one with the metal stay. Elara had woken up and wondered what the heck Gramma was doing and wanted her own wrist brace. So…we ended up twinning 

Why did I happen to have a left wrist brace lying around? When I was 18 I had gotten a puppy. He was an all black Labrador & Doberman mix (Lab-A-Dobe) that we named Stroh’s (yes, after the beer). When I was walking him, he ran around my feet and tripped me. I scraped up my palm but thought nothing of it until I had to go to the bathroom and couldn’t zip up my pants. A quick trip to the ambulatory center (that’s what we called “walk-in clinics” back in the day) and an X-Ray later, I had fractured my scaphoid bone. Truth be told, I could never remember which bone I broke, I just remembered it was the bone in your “snuff box”, so I googled it again. I don’t even remember how long I was in a cast. That was a crazy time-my childhood home had all but burned to the ground and my parents were staying in an apartment just down the street from me. My dad was actually the one who took me to the ambulatory center. Anyway, every once in a while when the weather was weird, my wrist would ache a bit, so I would throw a brace on.

As the day went on, the swelling increased. Thinking the brace was too tight, I would take the brace off. My wrist would start hurting more, or Elara needed to be picked up, so I put the brace back on. Then my hand would swell, so I took the brace off…That was the jest of the day-on, off, on, off. You get the idea. Since my wrist would ache for a bit on occasion, I decided to take a wait & watch approach, plus since I don’t drive anymore I needed to make sure someone could take me. Over the next couple days, I noticed the swelling wasn’t really going down (sometimes it was worse) and I had occasional numbness & tingling.

Let’s turn the page here…