This morning I went to the Hand Program at Toronto Western Hospital. Finally managed to have a peek at my chart so I could see exactly what the radiologist noted about the x-ray:
Indication: injury
Lucent line at the dorsal base of the distal phalanx with the bony fragment displaced by a distance of 2—3 mm.Interpretation
Minimally displaced intraarticular avulsion fracture at the dorsal and ulnar base of the left fourth distal phalanx.
Definitions
Lucent line: Decreased opacity—classic sign of fracture
Dorsal: back
Distal: The far end of whatever you’re looking at
Phalanx (pl. phalanges) finger or toe bones
Intraarticular: crossing the surface of a joint
Avulsion fracture: fragment of bone tears away from the main mass of bone
Ulnar: on the side of the ulna bone (one of the two forearm bones)
Evidently this rather alarming-sounding (to me) medicalese was not serious enough for the doctor to be too concerned. He briefly looked at the radiologist’s note, barely looked at the x-ray (and didn’t even bother to look at the side-view picture featured in my previous post), slapped a splint on my fingertip and said see you in two weeks. So it doesn’t look like it’s much to be concerned about.
Although if it ends up being something to be concerned about I’m going to be seriously ticked off at him.
My teeny-tiny, oh-so-high-tech finger splint.
So how is your finger now? Can you point? Can you count to five? Can you do schemey fingers?
Still a bit sore, but I’m finding that I’m favouring it so much that I’m using the rest of my hand in weird ways—enough that I think I’m getting slight carpal tunnel (my pinky’s going numb). If I don’t watch it I’ll be going from 8-finger typing to 5-finger typing…
Actually, just Googled it and numbness in the pinky isn’t carpal tunnel but cubital tunnel syndrome, also known as ulnar nerve entrapment. Likely I slept on it funny. Hopefully it’ll go away soon.
hey looks just like my finger at the moment…although I don’t have a cool splint.