Well I got up Monday morning and I couldn’t close my hand. I couldn’t figure out at all what was going on; I just knew it was very sore. All day Monday it got no better and it just got more and more sore. On Tuesday, it seemed a little better and I thought, “well, whatever it was, it seems to be healing somewhat”. My oncologist’s office called to check in on me and I told her about it. She told me that she would check in on me in a couple of days.
Wednesday it was worse. My hand was now so swollen that I couldn’t make a fist, it was very painful – so much so that to lift my hand required me to use my left hand to lift as moving the muscles was too painful, and there was a small red spot on the top of my hand. That evening, my daughter suggested we go to an urgent care centre to have it looked at. Thank goodness my grandson suggested I remove my rings as I would never have been able to remove them later.
I should mention that there was an incident here at home the week previous that I thought might be related to my sore hand. Vic went out late at night to take out the garbage. A few minutes later I realized that he had been gone too long and went out to check on him. He was laying on his back in the driveway; he had fallen and couldn’t move his leg. He has a knee injury that has left him with recurring weakness and it caused him to fall again. I attempted to get him up and if it wasn’t so painful for both of us, it would have been funny. He weighs quite a bit more than I do so it took all my strength to try to get him up. I gave it a tremendous pull on my right arm and felt a pop! Or a snap! Or something that felt like I had torn or broken something. We finally got him up using the trunk and my walking cane to get him inside the house. He is now in physiotherapy to try to strengthen the knee. When I felt whatever happened in my arm, it was right where my picc line was. I don’t have enough knowledge to know whether or not that matters but it worried me. Anyway, we went to urgent care. They had a look, x-rayed my hand and detemined that nothing was broken. The doctor told me he was more concerned about my upper arm and what damage I had done there and set me up with an appointment with another doctor for the following week. He said my hand was sore from arthritis, take some tylenol.
In his words, “I am not so worried about your hand as your arm”.
The next morning, I had a check up with my cardiologist. This is my semi annual visit with him. All was good but he saw me holding my hand as I couldn’t move it. He had a look and sent me downstairs to emergency as he determined it needed to be looked at immediately.
That was certainly the start of a very long day. I waited three hours in emergency and by this time I was in so much pain that I sat trying to be calm and well-behaved but tears rolled down my face a good deal of the time. The pain was incredible! By the time I saw a doctor, my hand was swollen many times its size and there was a large red circle on the top of my hand that was growing larger. They sent me for an ultrasound and gave me some strong painkillers. The meds took the edge off the pain but it was still enough to make me cry. The doctors came in and explained that there was enough evidence from the swelling, the redness and the ultrasound to suspect septic arthritis. They left to decide next steps. You know as soon as they left I googled septic arthritis and it was scary. The doctor came back and explained that in order to be sure they needed to aspirate the sore red spot on the top of my hand. It involves sticking a needle in and drawing out fluid to see what it is in there. As I was waiting for an ortho doctor, Vic arrived to see how I was. He had dropped me off in the morning, thinking it was a quick visit and then went to bed as he was working that night. Thank goodness he came when he did as they had just told me how dangerous this condition could be. I won’t pretend that I wasn’t scared. The doctor came to aspirate my hand and I’m usually quite calm about these things but the hand was so incredibly sore that I was very nervous about the procedure. I looked away and was looking towards Vic. He is very good about being supportive but I looked at him as he looked at the needle and his eyes got huge and you could see on his face ‘this is not going to be good’. Well, it hurt like hell but it showed that it was not septic arthritis, it was cellulitis. They gave me some painkillers and antibiotics with a follow up appointment a week later and sent me off. It was a long painful day.
Somehow I thought that when I finished radiation that I would have some calm for a while. I had thought that there would not be as many hospital visits, doctors’ appointments and such. What was I thinking? Now it turns out that this week I have a follow up appointment for my bicep muscle as the urgent care doctor was concerned about a tear, I have my final visit with the radiation oncologist, a follow up visit with a doctor to look at my hand, an x-ray to check on the dreadful pain in my hip and knee (I think from the cancer medication I’m taking), a bone infusion to strengthen my bones and fight bone cancer and a check in with the cancer social worker to make sure that I’m hanging in there all right.
I waited to write this until I had seen the doctor regarding my hand. The swelling has gone down but there is still some soreness. He explained that the soreness is from my arthritis (he told me that the arthritis around my thumb is the worst he has ever seen. Good to be a standout at something!). Today is my last day of antibiotics and he said to keep eye on it when finished as it can easily come back and to go to emergency immediately if it returns. Oh good.
Not only was it all very painful; I have to admit that it scares me. Everytime something goes wrong, I get worried. Vic is wonderful and reminds me that my body has lived through a lot of trauma this past year and it is going to take a long time to recover. I won’t pretend that it has been easy these past weeks, but thanks to him I am reminded to look forward with positivity and good thoughts.
