On the 21st August, the VERY first boy child was born into the 'Fiesley' family - Pam had a sister, no brothers, we had two girls, no boys; our girls have had 3 girls (two for Sharon and Neal and one for Jeni and George) - but at 5:30pm on the 21st August, baby Teo was born to Jeni and George.
So that's a good start to the evening...
At 9:20pm on August 21st. however, I had a little fall which caused me to hurt my left wrist. It was a motorbike thing, but I thought I was OK and rode the bike home after the fall, using my sore left hand to work the clutch, without knowing my wrist was broken. It only took two hours before the wrist swelling and the pain caused me to call an ambulance in order to have something done about it (my wrist was too sore to even consider driving to hospital).
It took no more than a few hours for them to decide that I'd broken my scaphoid bone - an easily (and commonly) broken bone situated behind the thumb. I was given a plaster cast; a few hours later another one - and finally, this fibreglass one...
The idea is to keep the thumb stationary, but my fingers (they're folded* in the above pic) can still move.
* My fingers were closed because I was trying to give a rude 'thumb-up' signal to Kevin Hogarth, my photographer. It could be seen as being sad, but I think not, that I now give that very same signal to everyone I see. :)
Now I think I hear you ask - what has this to do with Pam? Well, how can I properly care for her with one and a bit hands?
The fibreglass cast comes off on the 30th September, the wrist then X-rayed and most likely re-plastered as above for another 6 weeks. Beats me how I can grin about this, but I did when the above photo was taken and, funnily enough now that three weeks have elapsed, given what I have discovered I can do with my gimpy left hand, I'm still grinning. So far, for the last four days at least, I've been able to get back to what I usually do getting Pam up for the day (for eg). Tomorrow (Saturday, as I write this bit), she gets her hair washed under the shower (her only shower for the week) and that'll certainly be a challenge - getting Pam from her bed using a lifter and sling to get her into her shower chair; and then from that via the lifter and sling, back into bed for drying and dressing. Yep, it'll be a challenge with a sore hand - but that's what Pam-care is all about - and I LOVE it. And don't forget - I have a new grandson!!!
I want to thank TRIO Support for providing wonderful carers to get Pam up each morning since the accident until I realised I could once again get back to doing it myself. Mildura is lucky to have TRIO Support Services, I can tell you!
