The art of being injured

It's been quite on the cycling front recently. As much as anything that has to do with the weather but then, just short of two weeks ago, I got injured. Correctly speaking I injured myself which really is the height of stupidity. For me that stupidity was caused by attempting DIY. I really, really should know better. Hopefully, by committing this to the world out there, I will finally put that lesson into my brain.

The short story is that I was trying to repair a couple of areas in our kitchen with missing tiles. And I was cutting a tile to fit a particularly awkward space when the tile slipped and neatly sliced a relatively deep cut into my the back of my hand. I dressed it by slapping a plaster on it and walked round to our local minor injuries department. Having peered in and seen something white I wasn't taking any chances. The nurses concurred. By the time I got home it looked like this.

Not as bad as it looks.

Most of the dressing was there to stop me moving my fingers and doing more damage. And that's where the trouble really starts. Because, you see, I also wasn't allowed to get the dressing wet. Apparently the steri-strips wouldn't have liked that. And that would have been bad for the "laceration". Of course, getting it wet, also included getting it sweaty. And that meant time away from training. Any form of training! This did not make me happy. This condition lasted a week which resulted in missing the best weekend we've had this year for getting out. I was gutted!

However, I had learnt my lesson from the last time I was forced off the bike. And this time I kept my cool, rested up and waited. Three days after the injury was done it was redressed and, despite it being much better, the strips were to stay in place until they'd been there a week. Then they could come off naturally but I wasn't allowed to pull them.

I had also realised that although there was no pain from the cut, trying to use the hand wasn't so pain-free. Which isn't great as a left-hander. Writing is still sore and occasionally I pull up short and go "Ow!".
But he good thing is that it's been all right this week for turbo training. I'm not convinced about being out on the road but the weather has put paid to that anyway. We appear to have descended into winter.
For those interested the cut now looks like this.

Healing nicely

I was lucky to miss the knuckle, the nerves, the tendons and any veins. Phew!

So the art of being injured is definitely one of patience. I'm just glad I wasn't out of action for long. So was the Significant Other! Now I just have to remember to stay away from that deadly DIY.