Ice, Ice, Baby

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate winter.  I really don't like anything about it.  The cold.  The snow.  The ice.  The wind.  I only stay here because we have a good living through my husband's work and he doesn't want to start over.  We may have to reconsider.  Soon.

Last winter I fell twice.  Once on some black ice and the other time in the house.  Nope, not explaining that one, sorry.

After all that I've been through with my ankle this past year, I have been extraordinarily careful when it appears that anything at all is on the street or sidewalk.  Possible ice or even heavy frost has me shuffling across the parking lot like an 80 year old women in her house shoes.

Yesterday I went up to the Y at about 6 a.m. to swim.  Because I have been an invalid here and there I have a funny habit of swinging both legs around and standing up with both feet on the ground.  I do this most of the time.

The only problem was that this time, I stood up on solid ice.  Couldn't feel it under my feet.

When you put both feet down on solid ice, a funny thing tends to happen.  You go down.  Hard.  In my case the car door was still open and my keys went flying. My legs went under the car.

Thought #1:  feels like knees and ankle are OK
Thought #2:  Oh no!  (I actually moaned this out load.  I sounded like a pathetic little puppy.)
Thought #3:(and it would have been my first thought without my history)  Did anybody see that?  (no one did, whew).

I crawled to my keys, pulled myself up and carefully went into the Y.  It did occur to me that maybe I should skip it, but hey, I have been called stubborn more than once.

Unfortunately, I was in too much pain in my right arm to even kick in the water, so I got out and went home.  I called in to work, let my husband know and crawled into bed and slept.  I felt like I had been in a wreck or something.

I did at least get to my friendly orthopaedic office.  They were happy to see me and we discussed how I was moving up in the world.  Literally.

Verdict:  broken left ring finger.  Torn rotator with nerve impingement.  I actually aggravated an injury that I got when I fell on the sidewalk in New York a couple of summers ago.  (I wrote a post about this is 2012)
Course of treatment:  Cortisone shot (nothing new here), Pt (of course), followed by an appt in a month to see if I need an MRI and whatever that will imply.  Activities as tolerated.

So, here we go again.  I tell ya, I really know how to live.

It is supposed to snow a bunch this weekend.  I may come out in the spring.  Somebody needs to rescue me from this frozen icy wasteland.

You can't see it very well, but there is a nice black and blue lump
under that last knuckle  above my ring.

I broke my finger right where the ligament attaches at that knuckle
so no splint for me as I need to keep exercising it so it will
straighten and flex in future.  I didn't realize my finger was broken
before it started turning and swelling.  Luckily, my rings still turn.
They sure won't fall off anytime soon.