Hand Up Date

I love my primary care doctor.

However, I couldn't get in to see her. I had to settle for her nurse practitioner. This was the first time I saw her.

She didn't know what to do about my hand and resorted to Dr. Google ::insert eye roll here:: and I finally asked her to go ask my doctor what to do. I'd already googled the thing multiple times and come up with varying answers; that was why I went back to the doctor.

So, without looking at my hand, my doctor told the NP to order an x-ray and possibly physical therapy. Maybe I need to use my hand instead of babying it, although babying it last weekend helped more than the non-babying I'd been doing. Remember, I was dealing with a husband recovering from surgery. I couldn't very well not use my hand.

I wasn't happy with this advice. For one thing, the x-ray place they are using now is not local, it's 35 minutes away. For another, I felt like it was the wrong advice. I can try moving my hand more and exercising it, but I've been doing that anyway. Every morning I wake up and move my hand in all the formations of the chords on my guitar. Once or twice a week I've tried to play the guitar. I have typed every day. I haven't been holding it still.

I put my husband's compression socks on him for nearly 10 days after I was told to put a splint on my finger. You can't put compression socks on somebody with a splint on your finger, I can tell you that right now.

I came home from the doctor, at a sandwich, and then wrapped a small ACE around my hand, leaving my fingers free. It's fairly loose and I can move my wrist up and down, wiggle my fingers, and flex my hand against the bandage. If the x-ray place calls to make an appointment, I am going to give it 10 more days before I go for the x-ray. I don't want more x-rays if I don't need them.

My doctor has in the past year had an entire staff turnover. I doubt this is unique to her, but I am uncomfortable with new people when it comes to health care. Prior to Covid, most of her staff had been with her for over a decade and I knew them well. I don't blame people for leaving medicine or moving on to better paying jobs (I don't really know where her staff all went), but that doesn't mean it doesn't have consequences, especially for someone like me who doesn't like change. It's one thing to go somewhere and always see someone new; I can get used to that if I expect it. But to have seen the same people for a decade and then have them gone, well, that makes me anxious.

Wish me luck as I try to take care of my hand for another week.