Oopsie!

I sprained my right wrist three days ago. I was on my lunch break, and Blitz and I were walking through the yard. I noticed that a lower branch on a tree near our creek was drooping almost to the ground. It was partially split off. So I grabbed it and started working it, back and forth, up and down. And it was working. The bark was cracking. The wood was splitting. I didn’t manage to get it down, but it was hanging on to the tree by the thinnest sliver.

I got Blitz inside and grabbed the loppers. This is when the trouble started. I still don’t know exactly what happened. I was struggling to cut it all the way through — next thing I know, I was on the ground. I fell hard. And I automatically braced with my right wrist. Pain shot through my arm.

I got up, dusted myself off, and picked some wild blackberries. (I had the bowl with me that I use for berry collecting.) Then I got the loppers again and finally worked off the branch, dragging it to the brush pile.

My wrist hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable. At that point.

I eventually logged back into work, and the pain got worse as the day went on. My mobility did, too. I tried to wrap my wrist, but it actually made it hurt worse. It got to the point where I was typing only with my left hand.

One of my co-workers finally urged me to log off and go to urgent care. (It was literally the second week of my new job! Horrible timing!)

At 4:30 pm, I left for the urgent care. I walked in, and they told me they didn’t have an X-ray machine, so I’d need to go to the emergency room at the hospital down the street. Ugh.

It was a long ordeal of sitting in the main waiting room, being escorted to wait for a long time in a private room, seeing multiple healthcare people and giving each one the same information, being escorted back out into the main waiting room, etc. etc. etc. And I hadn’t even been X-rayed. When they finally called me back for X-rays, that part took 2 minutes.

Ten minutes later, an email alert: “You have a new lab result on MyChart.”

I logged into MyChart to get the results of my X-ray. No fracture. Soft tissue damage. I waited several more minutes, but no one came out to get me so I could speak to the doctor.

Finally, I got tired of waiting. If it wasn’t fractured, there was literally nothing they could do for me in the ER that I couldn’t do for myself at home. I had an ACE bandage and a wrist brace. I had ice packs. I had Advil. I walked over to the reception desk and requested a discharge. They had me sign a form (HA! My right wrist is my dominant wrist), and I was on my way home.

I iced it, wrapped it, AND put on my wrist brace for good measure.

You know, a night’s rest did a world of good. It felt so much better the next day. And the day after that.

This happened on Wednesday. When I went to bed that night, I couldn’t even curl my hand into a fist without pain shooting up my arm. Now I have most of my mobility back with only a little pain.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to resume heavy yardwork anytime soon. This still needs time to heal. But at least it’s not going to affect my ability to do my job.

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In other news, my very first FORA client is now on the first full day of her trip to the UK that I booked for her and her husband. They check in today for their Trafalgar tour. They arrived in London yesterday morning so they could have a couple days of sightseeing on their own. Trafalgar will take them on a brief tour of London tomorrow, and they will move on to other parts of England on Monday. The tour includes Edinburgh as well, including the famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

I’m very excited for them and not at all jealous.