Stiches removed

This monday I got to remove my cast and stiches. It felt really odd but it’s sooo good to be able to scratch (and wash) again.

Unfortunately, I can now hardly move my finger.  There was a 20-25° angle missing when trying to bend the finger backward/straight out, so it got a little crocked (sidewise as well). But the worst part is that I can’t close the finger either. The tendon that was mostly damaged leads to the top joint in the finger and when I try to move it it feels like there is something in the way. Same thing with the middle joint, but I have slightly better movement there. I now have to wear a special plastic rail around the clock to prevent the finger from stiffening in a crocked position, and it also protects the finger from impact. The rail will be adjusted regularly to adjust the angle and shape of the rail.

This also means that I will have to do a lot of  physiotherapy and special hand exercises every third hour for at least a couple of months, probably more.

Sensitivity-wise, it’s very odd. Below the scar it feels pretty much normal, but above it is no fun. If sliding a finger nail or something from the base of the finger upwards, I get a tiny jolt every time it crosses the scar, kind of when you hit the nerve in your elbow. In the area above that, half the finger feels like it’s sleeping. In that kind of way that when you’re trying to walk when your foot is asleep, and it almost burns when you touch the floor with it.

I have no idea if this is going to disappear or if it will always stay like this. I tried typing on the keyboard with the rail off, but its too unpleasant for that. I assume the same thing will happen if playing the piano or guitar, and that is a little disconcerting.

The ring finger is at least better for this kind of damage that the thumb, index finger or little finger.

As suspected, my finger needs surgery. Tomorrow morning I will go to a hospital in Nacka where they will open up the finger again and try to stitch together the severed nerve bundles. The doctor I talked to yesterday thought that I would have to have a plaster with braces for about three weeks, which would suck. But I’ll know more about that after the surgery tomorrow.

On another note, the tetanus shot has made my left arm and shoulder all sore, even now four days later. Is that normal?

Yesterday my brother and his fiancee were over at our place for dinner with wine. Afterwards we were going out and thought that we should take the empty bottles with us since we were passing the recycling cabin anyway. While there my brother threw a bottle hard into the glass bin to make it crash. Unfortunately, part of the bottle ricocheted back up and came straight for me. Instinctive I put up my hand to protect my body from the whirring glass, and it hit my right ring finger.

And there were blood – lots of it. In fact, I even had an arch of blood across my face, going all the way into my right ear. The floor in the recycling cabin had blood splattered on an area about two meters wide.

We rushed back into the apartment, pressing the finger together, putting three compresses and a makeshift tourniquet made of tape while M called for a taxi.

After arriving at the emergency room at the hospital, I only had to wait for about 5 minutes before getting my hand looked at. After removing the bloody compresses and cleaning the wound with salt water they cut off the blood flow with a rubber tube and a peang. Prodding the finger with what looked like toothpicks, the conclusion was that I had lost feeling in about half my finger. After two anesthesia shots in the finger (that really hurt), I soon didn’t feel anything at all.

Despite the nerve damage they had to close the finger to stop the bleeding, so they started to sew. It was a really odd sensation to see them doing it and not feel any pain. After 10 stitches they released the peang to let the blood through the finger, but immediately had to put another two stitches due to leakage.

The people who closed up my finger were really nice, and we even had a few laughs together.

After getting my stitches it was time to  x-ray the finger to look for skeletal damage (since the cut was so deep). For some reason this was considered a really high prio case, I got to go before people who had been waiting for several hours. Anyway, the x-ray turned out fine and the glass hadn’t damaged the bone.

A quick bandage and a tetanus shot later and I was on my way home again. Total time in the hospital was just above three hours, which was probably a new record for me.

Today the finger hurts quite a bit, and I will soon go the pharmacy to get the pain killers and antibiotics that I got prescriptions for.

Tomorrow I will have to go to another hospital, where a specialist in hand surgery will assess the damage and possibly open the finger up again to try to repair the damaged nerve(s).

Now, time for some (quite gory) pictures:

For the last two years or so I’ve become increasingly irritated when doing the laundry.
What mostly bother me is the following:

• About half the time people have been using twice the amount of detergent in the machine, resulting in leftovers that will go into the next wash that I have to clean up before doing my laundry. Since M has a very allergic skin we have to use a special non-allergic laundry detergent, and having to remove old lumps of strongly perfumed detergent isn’t fun.
• People can’t read instructions. They often put powder detergent in the compartment for liquid detergent, resulting in it being completely clogged as this only uses a thin pipe for the detergent to pass. Which I have to clean.
• People do not empty the fuzz from the tumbler-drier. Which I have to clean unless I want more fuzz, feathers and other stuff on our clothes.
• People leave detergent powder on the clothes table used for folding clothes. Which I have to clean.
• About everything that you should clean after laundry (machines, tables, floors…) is often dirty, sticky or powdery.

-So talk to your neighbors about it!

No can do. The wash house is shared on over 100 households, and the digital booking system doesn’t allow you to see who had the pass before you. And I doubt writing angry notes will help much.

Generally, it’s all about cleaning up after others in order to do our laundry that I’m tired of. So I’m thinking about buying my own washing machine.
A washing machine with A+ energy class costs about 5000 SEK including delivery and installation, so with the electrical cost and divided over 5 years (I have no idea how long you usually keep a washing machine so that is just a guess) it will cost about 25 SEK per week. After 5 years the cost drops to about 4 SEK / week based on todays electrical price. Water is included in the rent so that is not a problem.

The drawback is that it takes a bit of space and the clothes will have to dry in the apartment instead of in the washing house on the inner courtyard. On the other side I don’t have to go back and forth to the washing house on the inner courtyard every time. And I can wash whenever I need without having to book a time days ahead.

Has anyone ever regretted buying their own washing machine and prefer going to a washing room shared with hundreds of other people?

Update: http://www.frankjohansson.com/blog/regarding-laundry-part-ii/

I was working on my typewriter project today and had finally removed all the parts needed so that what I basicaly had was an empty frame.

One of the beams wennt into the area where the motherboard would be located and needed to be removed. This was held in place by a number of pegs. Using a hammer and an awl/center punch, I began tapping the pegs to push them out. As they wouldn’t move, I used a little more force.

And that’s when the frame broke. Both front and back, so it was now completely in two pieces. As it is made out of cast iron, the chances of getting it repaired and still look would cost many times more than I paid for the actual typewriter (which was 80 SEK).

Economically, it’s no biggie. It’s just the time I’ve spent on it that feels a bit sour. It took over 10 hours to get it stripped down to the state it was in before it broke.

To commemorate the moment, I took some pictures of just the screws that I removed from the typewriter when pulling it apart. Note there were more screws than this on the typewriter, including tiny calibration screws for each and every key. These are just the ones I unscrewed.

So now what?

There are a few options. Either I find another typewriter with a more suitable frame. Or I use a NES casing (I have two in storage for such a purpose). Or I build a custom case. Or I find something else to build my computer into.

Let’s see what comes my way.