Update on Bill’s Wrist

Since I can’t respond individually to the hundreds of people who have written in to Bill’s Head Headquarters to ask how Bill’s Wrist is doing, I figured I would post an update here.

My injury was a fracture of the triquetrum bone^*, which is the most- or second-most-common kind of wrist fracture, depending on whose statistics you believe. Usually, a little piece chips off. They put you in a cast, and everything works out fine. However, because I’m special, that’s not what happened to me. I broke off a big piece, and there was a large gap between it and where it was supposed to be. I went to two separate orthopedists who between them had been working on hands for over 25 years, and neither of them had ever seen an injury like this before. The doctor who ended up fixing it for me was quite excited–he took pictures of my x-ray and CT scan with his iPhone, I guess so that he could pull it out and show me off at orthopedist cocktail parties.

Both doctors recommended surgery to fix the bone fragment back in place, so I had that done last week. The surgery went fine, and my parents, who had come to be supportive, were able to leave the surgery center in time to make it to the opera that evening.

After a week wearing a half cast/splint that they put on me in the operating room (clearly designed or applied by someone who has never had to wear one, given how miserably uncomfortable it was), I got my real cast yesterday:

If you look closely, you can see the pin holding things together.

I also got a waterproof cast cover, which is a little more secure than the newspaper bags I’ve been using to cover my arm for showering. I can probably reuse the thing for next year’s Halloween costume, too, since it makes me look like a low-rent monster from Dr. Who.

This is the first time I’ve ever had a cast, so I missed out on that whole cast signing thing in childhood. A black cast is a little tough to sign, and I don’t see most of you in person, but if you’d like to sign the cast you can scrawl out your message, then photograph or scan it and send it to me (or just use the comments below). I’ll print out your messages on stickers and put them on the cast, if I haven’t lost interest in this project by then. Also, I’m willing to sell advertising space or naming rights; get in touch if you’re interested. But hurry, because I only have to wear the thing for three weeks (half as long as I was expecting).

Thanks to all of you who have wished me well and/or told me how lucky I was not to have broken both wrists like your friend/brother/coworker/acquaintance/spouse/distant relative did.