Slice of Life: The Rest of the Story

The other day, I wrote about the time I took my dogs out and ended up with a spiral fracture in my ring finger. You can catch up on that story HERE.

What I failed to mention in that story is that this episode happened a week and a half before we were leaving for Spain. My husband is from Spain and we had a three week trip planned to visit his family and some friends we have there. So, when I was told to call a hand surgeon and make an appointment for them to look at my broken finger, I did not call. I didn’t think I would get a quick enough appointment and I had a bunch of things to do to prepare for the trip.

In hindsight, this was a pretty poor decision.

Given the fact that my finger had a spiral fracture, I bet I would have been able to get in for a more immediate appointment and it should have been set with pins from the beginning.

Anyway, I went about life and kept the finger splint on my finger. I had no idea how long to leave it. My sister, who is a doctor, but not a hand surgeon, gave me an educated guess, but didn’t really know either.

I went to Spain and we traveled and I dealt with it. My finger was in that splint for the whole time. It was a little bit of an adventure to find medical tape in the Farmacia but we finally did. After our trip, I called to make an appointment with a hand surgeon. They did not have an appointment for another month. In hindsight, I should have asked over the phone about the finger splint, but I didn’t.

What I did start to notice was the fact that I didn’t seem to be able to bend my finger. I thought it seemed weird that it was still not healed.

It didn’t hurt anymore, but it also didn’t really work.

The day came to go to my appointment with the hand surgeon. He had his x-ray technician take the precise films that he needed to be able to diagnose the situation well. I will never forget his words.

“There are two problems here. First, your finger healed crooked. Second, it is stiff as hell because of that splint.”

He gave me options. I could go to hand therapy and work with my hand to get the mobility back in my finger or I could schedule surgery to correct the crookedness and then do hand therapy along with the healing. I wasn’t sure, but he convinced me that the surgery was going to be what I needed to do, and it was better to do it sooner than later.

So, I headed home and started working on moving my finger. I worked and worked to try to make it more mobile and be able to bend it better. What I discovered once I could fully bend it was that the surgeon was right. I needed this corrected as soon as possible. My finger was crazy. I had no grip to speak of.

I now had to decide when to do the surgery.

The first available times were smack dab in the middle of the first weeks of school. Any teacher knows that this is quite possibly the worst time in the school year to be absent. However, I knew that with my weird hand I would have a very difficult time getting through my regular tasks each day. Better to get the surgery and recovery over with and then have the majority of the school year with my kiddos.

So, I went to school for the first week. Then, I took medical leave, had my surgery, and was out of school for the next four weeks. I now have a plate in my hand. Because the finger was so stiff, it was difficult for the surgeon to see when he had it lined up correctly. So, my finger is not exactly straight. But it is much better than how it used to be.

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The moral of the story: Call the hand surgeon when you break your finger, even if you think it is no big deal. Your fingers are actually more important that you might imagine.