But first and foremost: I did it. You didn't believe in it. I guess my professor didn't believe i it... not even myself believed in it, but it did happen. My thesis has been handed in 4 weeks ago! There's still a lot to come in regards to defending and actually publishing it... anyways, a huge milestone is reached.
A lot of you will recall me saying that once it is handed in I will return to enjoying life so you might wonder why it took me so long to write again. And why am I writing in English? Let's start with the second question. As part of enjoying my life I should work on my social life over here and I guess it's only fair to give the people I met or will meet a chance to understand when I write about them. Practicing written English is also a nice side effect. So for Americans: Parental advisory. This blog can contain explicit content like cursing, violence and nudity... well not so much nudity.
So why did it take me so long to come up with a new post? Well, first of all I took two weeks for some sailing with my homies to celebrate handing in my thesis in style. That will be covered in a separate post. During that trip I had to save someone's life by catching a swinging boom before it hit his head which in turn destroyed my hand. At least this is what I would have liked to have happened. In reality I fell down the stairs on the ship and must have hit my hand somewhere on the way down. My hand didn't really appreciate that and turned into this:
In case you wonder: This is not how the joints are supposed to look. By now I know that nothing broke or was torn so actually I was quite lucky but I couldn't move the fingers on the right hand for about 3 weeks. The doctor in the BVIs prescribed some medicine which I wasn't allowed to combine with alcohol so I skipped that. Maybe that wasn't the smartest decision in regards to the healing process but definitely for the vacation fun. Back in the US they diagnosed RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy). Having a syndrome that needs an abbreviation makes me feel a lot better but there is so little on the net about this and even those articles say that there are debates whether it is a real thing... anyways, I go with that. It has been explained to me that during the fall my nerv system got in so much pain that it is offend now and doesn't want to work anymore. What a wimp. Interestingly enough the syndrome can lead to a different speed of nail growth which actually is happening. Main point though is that it leads to me not being able to move my hand and now I have to bend my fingers every day to get them moving again. And then there's therapy... in which someone else bends my fingers for me. I'm not quite sure why my insurance is paying for that... and no, I'm not doing it because a hot nurse bends my fingers.
The healing progress has been pretty good so far and I've already been lifting bars again (bars as in workout!) so I think I can also type again. Drinking is not allowed though as the pills for the nerves are kinda heavy hitters. It's hard to get up in the morning after taking them. Still the doctors won't tell me that everything will get back to normal again. I hope that this is due to them being afraid of me suing them if it's a wrong statement. They go with "it should get normal again in some weeks or months".
It's also quite hard to to get to a real doctor here as first I had to fill out and sign about 6 pages full of questions and waivers that no one is accountable for anything. That was quite a challenge without being able to move my fingers on the right hand but a friend helped me with that. After that a nurse get's you and copies the information into a laptop while asking more questions. Once done a junior doctor (or whatever) comes in and does the examination. He then talks to the doctor who looks at you for 5 minutes to tell you whether the junior doctor was right. How to distinguish the two? The junior doctor tries to shake your right hand while the doctor first asks which hand is affected. You just can't beat experience.
Fun fact. Although the network my doctor belongs to is called "coordinated health" and my physical therapy location belongs to the same network they asked me the same questions again. Another interesting fact about the US health system. The limiting factor to getting an MRI (MRT) appointment was not the availability of the machine but that the provider wanted to check with my insurance first before doing it.
It's also quite hard to to get to a real doctor here as first I had to fill out and sign about 6 pages full of questions and waivers that no one is accountable for anything. That was quite a challenge without being able to move my fingers on the right hand but a friend helped me with that. After that a nurse get's you and copies the information into a laptop while asking more questions. Once done a junior doctor (or whatever) comes in and does the examination. He then talks to the doctor who looks at you for 5 minutes to tell you whether the junior doctor was right. How to distinguish the two? The junior doctor tries to shake your right hand while the doctor first asks which hand is affected. You just can't beat experience.
Fun fact. Although the network my doctor belongs to is called "coordinated health" and my physical therapy location belongs to the same network they asked me the same questions again. Another interesting fact about the US health system. The limiting factor to getting an MRI (MRT) appointment was not the availability of the machine but that the provider wanted to check with my insurance first before doing it.
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