The hand I've been dealt

I skated last Tuesday and my goal was to take a week off to rest and skate again this week on Wednesday since that's the start of our fall contract. However, I have the worst luck known to man and my week of rest has turned into a week of misery. That fall that I took last week, the one I wrote about in my previous post, left me very sore. Mostly, it was my knees that hurt so that's why I wanted to rest my body for a week. While I was so focused on my knees blooming into quite impressive bruises, I failed to notice how badly I hurt my left hand.

On Friday morning, I was getting dressed for work when the most intense pain I've experienced in a while shot up my left index finger and up my arm. It was so bad that it brought me to my knees (my sore sore knees). I went to the orthopedist's walk-in clinic later that day and they took x-rays and hypothesized what was causing it but because the ortho who focuses on hands wasn't there, they asked me to come back to talk to him, which I did this morning.

From a previous injury years ago, I had a surgery to fuse the knuckle joints in my index and middle fingers of my left hand. To hold those joints together, they inserted tiny metal pins which were to be removed a couple of months after the original surgery. However, when they told me how they were going to remove them (cut me open and pull them out with pliers while I'm still awake) I freaked out and never went back. So I've been living with these metal pins in my fingers for 17 years and it's never been a problem. But this fall I took last week was so hard that it moved the pin in my index finger out of the bone and now it's trying to work its way out of my finger pointy end first. Basically, I'm being stabbed from the inside. Not the best feeling. In fact, my broken leg pain from two years ago pales in comparison to the finger pin pain that I'm feeling now.

So I saw the hand guy this morning and he wants to remove the pins. I'm scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning but it's a short procedure that should only take about 30 minutes and they will give me some stuff to knock me out. Just a couple of stitches in each finger and then I'm on my way. I don't think my hand will feel good enough to get on the ice on Wednesday as planned but I contracted for Fridays as well so I think I might be fine later in the week. Mostly, I can't tie my skates otherwise I would try to soldier through and skate anyway but I need my hands for laces. Sigh.

So yeah, my one week of rest turned into this. Figures. I'm stressing out a bit because my first competition of the season is in less than 3 weeks and I really need to be working on my programs but instead, here I sit with a bandaged up hand. On the plus side, my knees don't hurt anymore :)