Broken Hand Sadness

This happened back at the start of July. Steve went to BJJ as per usual, was doing a drill and put his hand down awkwardly. It hurt a bit, but not too much, so he wondered if he had just jarred it. After a week of resting, it was not feeling better, but had started bruising up, so off he went to find a doctor. Should I mention I was away at my language teacher course? Not just in Saitama (about an hr on the train), but actually away on a one night trip to the other side of the country, Kanazawa (more on that soon), and I had accidentally taken the passports with me. Whoops! Talk about stress! 

The Japanese health system is different to Australia, and there seem to be specific doctor's clinics for bone injuries, so there were a few different visits to start with before he found the right place. Sophie had been to a doctor already because she had a virus/cold in June (lost her voice and had a whole week off school!). Steve started there, but that was a kids only doctor. They sent him to another local doctor who was literally across the road from our house. They were a general practice and didn't do bones, so they sent him to another place near where we did our major groceries. 

Steve then managed to navigate all the forms with some broken Japanese, a hefty amount of Google Translate and photos of the passport and visa. Whew. Honestly, Japanese people are usually so strict about paperwork I was worried they wouldn't accept the photos. That itself was a miracle. They took an X-ray of his hand (left) and found he'd broken a bone connected to his ring finger. 

It was a small break and the bones were pretty close together, so they put a splint on it and bandaged it up. The advice was to come back in a week and check on the progress. The girls did some serious stepping up to help Steve out while I was away finishing my language course, and they all got through ok. There may have been trips to the local ramen restaurants to help as well. No judgement!

Steve went back a week later and the second X-ray showed some fusing - progress! The doctor was happy with things and just said to come back again before we left Tokyo for a check up (two weeks to go at that point). He also said that when the hand was unwrapped at night for a shower, Steve could do some light movement exercises to help keep the joints moving. The plan was to have the hand checked in another two weeks when we got to Takayama, which would hopefully be at the end of the six week healing cycle. 

We were all really hanging out for the final doctor's visit. Steve was great at not using his hand too much, and being careful of it. There was no pain, so we were pretty sure we were going to get the all clear. In the heat of summer, the bandaged hand had been super uncomfortable for Steve, not to mention the impact on the travel. 

Being in a new city for the final appointment, Steve again had to go through the rigmarole of finding the right doctor, this time only going to one place before the sent him on to an actual hospital. The hospital came with a doctor who had studied in the States and spoke some great English. This was such a relief for Steve who could finally ask lots of questions. 

It was also a small victory though, because when they x-rayed the hand, they found the break had in fact not healed, but gotten worse. It's likely the advice to do the light movement once a day was the contributing factor here. I can't describe how frustrated and disappointed both Steve and I were when we found out. Not only were we in for longer with a broken hand, but if it doesn't fuse, now we are also expecting surgery and then likely an extended rehab period to get the hand working again. 

Since Steve broke his hand on the 1st of July, this means that about three months of being in Japan will be spent with a broken hand. I know it's not the end of the world, but it's certainly been less than ideal. I broke my own hand way back in 2007 and I can remember how frustratingly slow the rehab progress was. At least Steve broke his left hand and not his right like I did. Not much we can do but be thankful for Australian health care for when we return. 

If you're the praying type, we'd love to have you praying for us. We are trying to manage as best we can, and rolling with the punches when it comes to adjusting our plans, but it's been frustrating. This was definitely something we didn't see coming when we decided to do six months in Japan. We will be in Hiroshima in a week and when we get there, Steve's off to find another doctor/hospital to have regular check up visits until we go home. Let's hope the next x-ray has better news than the last one!