Not in hospital. Quite.

[desperance]

My fun. Let me show you it.

Thanks for all your advices about my thumb, which I was busily taking to heart and working out whether the doctor or the walk-in centre or just a phone call would be best - when of course the thumb started feeling better, not hurting so much. (NB - this may have been something to do with the heroic doses of co-codamol and ibuprofen I was swallowing, but I didn't really believe that; I don't actually have much faith in the efficacy of medicines, for all that I swallow them in quantities.)

Anyway, I thought maybe I'd just wait and see, one more day, y'know? I have work to do...

So it's coming on late afternoon when the thumb really starts hurting again, and the rest of the hand is starting to chime in a little. But by then it's too late to interact with the medical professionals, because I have to read at a gig tonight; so I endure. Heroically, I like to think.

By the time I get to the Lit & Phil, I'm really not feeling well at all.

By the time I get out of the Lit & Phil two hours later, I am shivering and hurting and the pain has reached my wrist.

I go straight to the walk-in clinic, which sends me through to Casualty.

Eventually a cute young Casualty doc comes to have a look, and is rather more worried than I'd expected. I was of course thinking infection, antibiotics, like that. He was thinking infection inside the tendon sheath, where the blood supply is pathetic and it's bloody hard to treat; he was thinking admission, and intravenous antibiotic nuking, and a probable visit from the clever hand surgeons this very night.

But he spoke to the clever hand surgeons, and came back with a compromise; oral nuking tonight, and an appointment first thing tomorrow. And I am not thinking that clever hand surgeons didn't really want to turn out in a bitter midnight, oh no. I heart the NHS, and trust all its decisions implicitly, I do.

So. Nice nurse came to clean and nuke the wound, and I nearly passed out under her ministrations, came over all dizzy, I did, and they nearly kept me in regardless; but here I am, safe home. And more than a little hurty - they didn't give me any nucular painkillers, sob! - and I can't even have a hot bath on account of needing to keep my dressings dry, but I can at least type.

Until tomorrow, when they will doubtless cut off my thumb, these clever surgeons.

Which is pleasingly symmetrical, because the novel I have coming out in January starts with a boy losing his thumb. And his right thumb too, just like mine.

I am hopeful not to live out the rest of his story, thanks. Though I wouldn't mind his final relationship, I think that'd be interesting. Just, not the stuff in between, oh no...

Comments

[pjthompson]

Bless you and may it all turn out well!

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

I know we're told to "write what you know", but there's such a thing as taking your research too far.

What a scary, nasty way to spend a day. I hope things start to heal up soon.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I'm really really glad you went in. Keep us posted, please.

[tammy-moore.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I hope the infection clears up without need for any intervention from clever hand surgeons. Take care and - since I saw the other post first - ask your neighbours to help with the pills. Under the circumstances I'd understand someone coming knocking even late.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Wow, sounds like you did the right thing, seeking medical care instead of waiting longer.

Thinking many hopeful and healing thoughts...

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

Yeow! Good luck buddy, hope it all heals up quickly.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Hope that the compromise option works to your advantage and that no clever hand surgeons need be involved.

[slovobooks.livejournal.com]

You poor wee thing! We are all - all six of us, that is:- Herself and myself, and the four cats - saying decades of the rosary for the safe return of your thumb to its usual state.

[anef.livejournal.com]

Much sympathy and best wishes.