Traumatology and treatment...

About ten days ago (see here) I tripped and injured my hand. When I heard the doctor's diagnosis of "gamekeeper's thumb" or "skier's thumb," I recognised it right away, and remembered that I had had the same injury back in 2005 when on outreach in Johannesburg. It wasn't diagnosed promptly at that time (I waited too long before going to the doctor) and it ended up being quite painful for four or five months. So I was relieved that it was diagnosed quickly this time and that I started to wear a brace right away.

After a few days, the swelling began to go down, but the pain seemed to get more and more intense. I couldn't really sleep at nights, and just getting dressed in the morning was excruciatingly painful. Yesterday, when I was giving a French lesson to a friend who is a physiotherapist, he told me that I should have it checked again, as that level of pain might indicate that the ligament was torn enough to need surgery.

So, off I went to the local health centre, where the doctor examined my thumb and told me that I'd need to go and have further x-rays or scans at the traumatology department of a Málaga hospital. I don't really know the city of Málaga very well, so I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to find the hospital, or even be able to drive that far with my hand in the brace. It was a blessing when my friends said they would drive me there.

I hadn't heard of "traumatology" before, but this part of the hospital was traumatic in more ways than one. While I was waiting to see the specialist, we had to listen to half an hour of painful yelling from some poor guy who was having his dislocated shoulder put back into place! Another man, his T-shirt soaked in blood from a head injury, looked like a character from a bad horror movie; turns out the hatchback door of his car had crashed down on his head!

The end of the story is that my ligament is torn enough to need "traumatology treatment," but fortunately not so torn that it needs surgery. I've to keep it in a sling now, as well as a brace; I'm not allowed to swim or to drive my car for a few weeks, or to "cheat" by using some of the other fingers on the computer. Everything has to be done completely one-handed now.

Part of the daily treatment in this first stage involves sitting with my hand in hot salty water for half an hour, then "massaging" it with ice cubes for fifteen minutes, and finally rubbing in a voltaren gel before putting the brace and sling back on again. Half an hour seems really long when you're just sitting with your hand in a bucket... so I'm using the time to read my Spanish grammar book too. And after being rubbed with ice cubes for quarter of an hour, the thumb is so frozen that there's almost no feeling left in it at all. This whole process, which takes about fifty minutes, has to be repeated four or five times a day - in addition to taking the three different prescription medicines that I got at the hospital. After a couple of weeks, I've to start physiotherapy - first "passive" therapy and then "active" exercises to strengthen the ligament again. Fortunately my physiotherapist friend can help me with those.

Apart from the pain, the main nuisance is not being able to drive my car and get around; I need to go everywhere on foot, and that's really time consuming. But I'm diligently following the doctor's orders and hoping my hand will be much better by the time I go to Switzerland for University meetings in September.