My Turn

This morning was my turn for the hospital.  

Yesterday, I had disassembled our icemaker because it was frosted-over and no longer making any ice. I defrosted all the ice/frost... and started assembling everything again... as I was pushing the icemaker upward with my thumb with as much force as I could muster to get it to clip back into place, my thumb suddenly popped loudly and bent completely backward just like a fingernail does at times...  That hurt a bit but the thought of my thumb bending completely backward at the top joint gave me the heebie-jeebies more than anything!  

I continued assembling the icemaker... finished... turned it back on... and then took a closer look at my swollen thumb...

I somehow got my thumb back into place but it was painful and a bit swollen. I figured I would let it go for now and see how it heals since it was not bruised yet nor was it looking like a balloon. By last night, my whole hand was swollen so I knew I'd probably be heading for some imaging in the morning.

This morning, my thumb felt halfway decent until I brushed my teeth. Just the act of lightly squeezing the toothpaste tube was enough to cause more pain and swelling so we headed to Urgent Care for some x-rays...

Fortunately, they found no fracture... but it is swollen and bruised with some damage to ligaments. They are calling it a hyper-extension sprain and they splinted it until a followup appointment in a week. The assumption is that my top digit popped out of its socket and the thumb bent completely backward and then I reset it myself. It gives me the creeps thinking about it more than it hurts but this will slow me down for the next week or so.

Just trying to get a photo of it was difficult... the camera has the shutter release on my right side where my right thumb usually holds the camera.  There will be no piano playing... no work with the table saw... limited computer mouse use... it'll be a quiet week but I could use some rest anyway.  My health has been taking another hit with all this heat anyway so it really is probably a time for a break anyway... before I cause a more serious injury.