It never ceases to amaze me when people come over, look at my turntable, and say, "Is that a record player?"
What in the world is wrong with the youth of today?
Never mind, don't tell me, forget I asked.
***
Do supposedly healed broken bones feel like they're moving around sometimes inside your body? My hand still feels funny, and I fucking broke it in August! Sheesh!
***
So I get to the ER, and the lobby is packed. I suppose I'll just call my lovely neighborhood orthopedic hack in the morning.
This is the story of Baise's hand:
I was in a nasty car accident last August while a passenger in a friend's Geo Metro. We approached an intersection right after a brief rainshower--we had no stop sign, while the perpendicular street had one. A woman talking on her cell phone with her children in her mammoth SUV (who lived less than a mile away from this intersection, I later discovered) ran her stop sign, and my friend could not stop her car in time because of the wet roads--we were only going 30 MPH at the moment of impact, if that tells you how close we were to the intersection when the other driver ran the sign. We hit right behind her passenger side front tire and spun, and then the SUV hit the driver's side door of my friend's car. The SUV had only a minor dent and wheel misalignment. My friend's car, however, looked like it had been through a war zone--the front end was smashed in, the dashboard was loose (if we'd been going any faster at the time of impact, it would have been thrown into us), the driver's side door was smashed in and the window blown out, and the back windshield had crumbled like a fucking cookie. My friend luckily had an airbag, but I didn't--I was the only person involved in the accident with any serious injuries, and unfortunately also the only person without health insurance.
I got a spiral fracture in the fifth metacarpal (the handbone attached to the pinkie for those of you who slept through anatomy class), which is, I've since been told, one of the worst bone injuries one can get. My right hand was braced on the seat at the time of impact, but my left hand was still in the air and it hit my chest at a very odd angle. My chest had no bruising, but within half an hour of the accident my hand had swollen to twice its normal size. It also adopted a lovely shade of blue-purple. Because of my inexperience with these things and my perpetual poverty mindset (not to mention the not-very-helpful police officers who arrived at the scene), I refused medical treatment, not realizing in my ignorance that the other driver's insurance company would automatically be billed.
I did not receive treatment for this injury for a week. In that week the pain became so unbearable that my now-roommate (this was about six months before I moved in with her) forced me to go to a walk-in clinic, where they did x-rays and discovered the fracture. They referred me to a local orthopedic surgeon, but when I went in for my appointment I was treated by not a physician but a CNA. Instead of a proper cast, I was put in some weird molded fiberglass contraption held on with an ACE bandage. I guess because I'm a college student, they assumed that it was kosher to cut corners with me, for which I'm now paying dearly. I was kept in this thingie (that's the only adequate way I can think to describe this) for only 5 weeks, and when it was taken off a completely different orderly looked at my new x-rays and admitted that it wasn't fully healed yet, advising me not to move it much or "bang it on things." When I went back for my final follow-up, the CNA that originally treated me was pissed that I could barely move my hand, but fuck, I was following orders. At no point during my treatment was I offered any sort of physical therapy other than being told to go to Walgreen's and buy a stress ball. And now my hand, which obviously never fully healed cos I've had ridiculous problems with it ever since, is fractured again.
So, anyone else smell a malpractice suit?
What in the world is wrong with the youth of today?
Never mind, don't tell me, forget I asked.
***
Do supposedly healed broken bones feel like they're moving around sometimes inside your body? My hand still feels funny, and I fucking broke it in August! Sheesh!
***
So I get to the ER, and the lobby is packed. I suppose I'll just call my lovely neighborhood orthopedic hack in the morning.
This is the story of Baise's hand:
I was in a nasty car accident last August while a passenger in a friend's Geo Metro. We approached an intersection right after a brief rainshower--we had no stop sign, while the perpendicular street had one. A woman talking on her cell phone with her children in her mammoth SUV (who lived less than a mile away from this intersection, I later discovered) ran her stop sign, and my friend could not stop her car in time because of the wet roads--we were only going 30 MPH at the moment of impact, if that tells you how close we were to the intersection when the other driver ran the sign. We hit right behind her passenger side front tire and spun, and then the SUV hit the driver's side door of my friend's car. The SUV had only a minor dent and wheel misalignment. My friend's car, however, looked like it had been through a war zone--the front end was smashed in, the dashboard was loose (if we'd been going any faster at the time of impact, it would have been thrown into us), the driver's side door was smashed in and the window blown out, and the back windshield had crumbled like a fucking cookie. My friend luckily had an airbag, but I didn't--I was the only person involved in the accident with any serious injuries, and unfortunately also the only person without health insurance.
I got a spiral fracture in the fifth metacarpal (the handbone attached to the pinkie for those of you who slept through anatomy class), which is, I've since been told, one of the worst bone injuries one can get. My right hand was braced on the seat at the time of impact, but my left hand was still in the air and it hit my chest at a very odd angle. My chest had no bruising, but within half an hour of the accident my hand had swollen to twice its normal size. It also adopted a lovely shade of blue-purple. Because of my inexperience with these things and my perpetual poverty mindset (not to mention the not-very-helpful police officers who arrived at the scene), I refused medical treatment, not realizing in my ignorance that the other driver's insurance company would automatically be billed.
I did not receive treatment for this injury for a week. In that week the pain became so unbearable that my now-roommate (this was about six months before I moved in with her) forced me to go to a walk-in clinic, where they did x-rays and discovered the fracture. They referred me to a local orthopedic surgeon, but when I went in for my appointment I was treated by not a physician but a CNA. Instead of a proper cast, I was put in some weird molded fiberglass contraption held on with an ACE bandage. I guess because I'm a college student, they assumed that it was kosher to cut corners with me, for which I'm now paying dearly. I was kept in this thingie (that's the only adequate way I can think to describe this) for only 5 weeks, and when it was taken off a completely different orderly looked at my new x-rays and admitted that it wasn't fully healed yet, advising me not to move it much or "bang it on things." When I went back for my final follow-up, the CNA that originally treated me was pissed that I could barely move my hand, but fuck, I was following orders. At no point during my treatment was I offered any sort of physical therapy other than being told to go to Walgreen's and buy a stress ball. And now my hand, which obviously never fully healed cos I've had ridiculous problems with it ever since, is fractured again.
So, anyone else smell a malpractice suit?
VIEW 25 of 35 COMMENTS
I can't believe how irresponsible the CNA was. I'd say talk to the doc to see what they can do. It was, after all, their clinic's fault that your hand didn't heal correctly. Fucking corner-cutters.