I am about to leave for surgery, but before I do that, I wanted to document the experience.
It happened during the last week of September. I was heading home on the E train. Getting off the subway, I raced past a slower person on the stairs. Okay, maybe raced is not the correct term. I attempted to pass a slower person, slipped and fell. I successfully braced my fall. There was one casualty, the radial ligament on the ring finger of my right hand.
There is what it looks like now :
You are probably wondering, "that doesn't look like anything". Okay. How about from the perspective of the back of the hand :
Still nothing? You don't see it, yet ?
Okay. Maybe if I show you the left hand, the contrast will be more apparent. I give you, the Left Hand :
What?? You still don't see it .......??
.......
In all fairness, the injury is difficult to see and diagnose from pictures, especially once the swelling subsided. In actuality I could "show" you the extent of the instability of the finger simply by waving my hand in the air. The bones and muscles are intact, so I can bend and flex the finger easily. It does hurt when the finger "goes" in a direction it isn't suppose to.
The professional diagnosis is : a radial ligament tear of the ring finger.
The solution : surgery to reattach the ligament to the bone using a dissolving bone suture.
The pre-operative solution :
Thats right. The old basketball taping of the fingers together. It works, is simple and its cheap.
In a few moments, the cause.
