Post-Traumatic Inflammation

ORIGINAL VERSION
LAST POST WAS "SNOW" OF 09-29-07.

It should not need mentioning. . . If three-plus inches of wet snow falls while the leaves are still on the trees, you get a lot of broken branches -- large branches. We were very lucky not to lose power Saturday, when this particular storm rolled in. And while I spent this evening cutting and moving branches -- and will do more moving tomorrow -- on Saturday I got to see that we weren't the hardest hit by the storm. Yes, while the snow was still falling.

A while back -- I've been telling folks two weeks ago today but it may have been as early as the Thursday before that -- I scraped my elbow. I'm not entirely sure when it happened. It wasn't the sort of injury that would seem to matter. I had to climb down a ladder that had a safety gate at it's top, and in the process of opening the gate and turning around to climb down, the spring-loaded gate slipped from my grip and banged into one elbow. I didn't even realize it had broken my skin until five or ten minutes later. I washed it a few minutes after that, and didn't think more of it.

September 29, the day of our first, but milder, snow (previous post), would have been somewhere between five and nine days after this accident happened. On that Saturday evening, my elbow was suddenly very sensitive. Just gentle pressure made it ache, and it was noticeably warm to the touch. The point at which this was going on was about an inch away from the scab I had. And although there was a little infection right around the scab -- like there often is with scabs -- the elbow in the tender area was only a little red and not swollen. Still, it was unusually warm.

Sunday I pealed the scab, which did not ooze in the process, and cleaned it again. This time I used an antibiotic cream and bandaid on the scrape. There was no improvement by the time I left for work Monday morning, but by Monday evening it was less sensitive. Tuesday morning I redressed it, again using the antibiotic cream. The rest of the week, it remained better but still noticeable, and the point of my elbow felt increasingly soft to the touch, and still warmer than the adjacent arm.

This past Saturday morning I woke up with my arm straight. I'm guessing it was straight for most of the night. It hurt to bend it, although once it was bent it no longer hurt to do so.

So, I went out in the storm to the local clinic, worried about my infected elbow.

You probably recognize the symptoms better than I did. It wasn't infected. The bursa was slightly swollen, probably due to the blow. The timing was consistent with the safety gate being the cause. The doctor prescribed an anti-inflammatory and recommended that I report what happened to the medical department at work. The medicine works well. Unfortunately, I followed his advice, too.

Why unfortunately? Well . . . 1) I didn't report the blow to the elbow when it happened. The blow itself maybe wouldn't have been worth reporting, but I had broken the skin. 2) I didn't report the blow to the elbow when the symptoms started. 3) I was given a prescription medication, rather than over-the-counter, which made the whole thing a reportable event. 4) And, of course, work is full of people who have nothing better to do than second-guess anything that wasn't done precisely the way they would have liked it, if it generates a paper trail.

Feh!

The sad thing is, there are so many problems at work, but at least I have the consolation of recognizing they are mostly IMO the result of poor management. This one was my fault instead.

-=-

(No, I'm not saying I should have gone to medical right away. But not to have gone when the symptoms started was just . . . stupid on my part.)