The long Easter Weekend started off well. My neighbour Irene and I left Easter cards and treats for each other, and she dressed up the perennial skeleton that stands guard outside her “garden” gate in some seasonal attire. The weather continued to be warm during the day, but it’s still dipping into the 30s-40s / single digits C at night.
I did my usual chores / errands on Saturday. then in the early evening met up with a gay mens group at Jack Nealons, one of the pubs on Capel Street. I arrived early and the place was empty. As I entered, one of the bar men asked me if I knew it was a gay bar, which was odd… but then I realised that people are still on edge after the events of the last couple of weeks in the LGBTQI community in Ireland (as discussed in my previous post). Also, I didn’t realise that Jack Nealons was officially a gay bar, as it is like any other pub and usually has a mixed crowd. At any rate, it was fun to go out and meet some new people. At 10pm, I returned back to my apartment for a Zoom call with family to catch up, after which I decided to go out again. Some of the group from earlier mentioned they would be going to The George, so I headed there and ran into a few of the guys from earlier plus another friend who just happened to be there also. It was “good craic” as they say here in Ireland, and I got home very late… thankfully I only live around the corner.
I didn’t have any plans for Easter Sunday, as most of my friends were off spending the holiday with family. The weather had turned rainy, so I slept in and stayed home to await some deliveries (which oddly were scheduled on a holiday). In addition to a couple of small Amazon packages, I had ordered a mattress foundation from IKEA to put under my mattress to raise it up a bit higher, something which I have been wanting to do for awhile. The IKEA delivery was made around 1:30pm. The mattress foundation, like most IKEA items, came unassembled in a box. I hadn’t expected it to be quite so large and heavy, and in hindsight I should have thought out a strategy ahead of time for getting up the stairs. Unfortunately, I thought I might be able to get it up to my apartment by sliding it up the stairs by pushing it from the bottom. This worked OK for the first short flight of stairs, although it was a big strain. As I tried to push the box up the next flight of stairs, my right arm made a series of popping sounds from my elbow, my bicep became very tender, and my arm lost its strength. I knew immediately this was not good. I couldn’t just leave the box where it was, so I decided to open it up and haul the parts up to my apartment separately using only my left arm — an approach I should have taken from the start.
Once everything was in the apartment, I sat down and put some ice packs on my arm. It didn’t hurt when it was supported and immobile, but I could not extend it fully without a lot of pain. I called my friend CJ (who thankfully was available) to talk through the situation and figure out what to do. It seemed serious enough that I should seek medical attention, but it was Easter Sunday after all. My private health insurance company, VHI, has a on call virtual nurse so the first step was to call them for advice. The nurse I spoke to recommended I go to one of their “swift” (i.e., urgent) health care centres, which thankfully were open. Unfortunately, the two centres in the Dublin area were out in the suburbs, more or less equidistant from the city centre where I live, about 20-30 minutes away by car. It was necessary to book an appointment, and the soonest one that was available was at 4:30pm, which gave me enough time to get myself ready. The appointment was at the southern clinic in a township called Carrickmines. I ordered a taxi, taking care to keep my right arm as still as possible by resting my hand on my left shoulder as suggested by the nurse over the phone. The driver seemed nice enough but for whatever reason was confused by the destination even though I had entered it into the “Free Now” taxi app. We ended up taking course-correcting through some very upscale suburban neighbourhoods, with large home behind gates and high fences, which was a part of Dublin I hadn’t really seen before. Once completing this detour, we arrived to a newly built shopping district in an otherwise fairly sparse landscape. I was aware than the VHI swift care clinic had previously been located near the Dundrum Shopping Centre, which I had been to not long ago, and the new clinic in Carrickmines was newly built — in fact, I learned later that it had only been open for 6 weeks. The building was spacious, clean and still had a “new” smell.
The check-in process went smoothly, and the out-of-pocket charge for the visit to the clinic was €25. There were a scattering of people in the waiting room, but it did not seem busy. I only waited a short time before I was called in to be seen by a nurse, who had an Eastern European name and accent (I assume Polish). He examined my arm carefully, including both the shoulder and elbow. The injury was likely a rupture to my distal biceps tendon in my elbow, although he could not discern whether it was a complete separation from the bone or just a partial one. He put in an order for some xrays, and I was ushered to another waiting room in near the clinic’s radiology department. I probably waited about 15-20 minutes, and a young woman technician called me in for the xrays. Everyone at the clinic was personable and friendly. Then I met again with the first nurse, who outfitted me with an arm sling and said that I should go home for now but come back tomorrow for a reassessment after 24 hours to see if the injury had shown any improvement. He told me to ice it for short periods of time and take ibuprofen for pain relief and as an anti-inflammatory. I checked out of the clinic, ordered another taxi, and was home by about 6:00pm. I had planned to cook some lamb steaks for Easter Dinner, but instead made something quick and took it easy for the rest of the evening.
On Easter Monday, which is an official bank holiday here in Ireland, I was to return to the swift care clinic for an appointment at 1:30pm. I had slept fairly well and gave myself plenty of time to get ready in the morning, including taking an awkward shower using just one arm and making breakfast. Instead of spending another €20-€30 on a taxi, I took the Luas light rail tram down to Carrickmines as there was a stop a short walk away from the swift care clinic. This time the waiting room in the clinic was a bit more full, with a variety of people both young and old, who appeared to have various minor injuries such as sprains or perhaps cuts that might need stitches. There was a restless young child who could not sit still with his mother and made up songs to keep himself entertained. Despite having an appointment, I waited about an hour before being seen by the same nurse as the previous day. He did a brief examination of my arm, which had not changed, and said that unfortunately they were unable to perform any additional scans at the clinic such as an MRI for non-critical injuries. His recommendation was for me to go to an A&E (Accident and Injury) department at a hospital, where they could order more tests. The closest one was the Blackrock Clinic, a private hospital which I knew was various prestigious, and after calling ahead to confirm they could still see me before they closed at 5:00pm, I left the swift care clinic and ordered a taxi there. The driver was quite friendly, and we chatted about personal experiences with health care in the U.S. and Ireland, respectively. The Blackrock Clinic is a smallish hospital, and the A&E department had a waiting room that seated about 20 people total. It was almost full, which was not surprising, and I took a number and waited to be called up to a receptionist window to be registered. The intake fee was €200, which I had to pay up front but could submit as a claim to my insurance for partial reimbursement. It wasn’t until after I had completed payment that the receptionist informed me that they would not be able to do any MRIs or other scans that day due to the holiday. This irked me somewhat, as that was the whole point in coming there, but I decided that it was still worth seeing someone who if nothing else could determine what tests/scans would be needed. There were clearly other people with more serious issues that needed to be seen before me — including one older man whose head was wrapped in a bloody bandage — so I was prepared for a long wait. I ended up waiting 3 hours before being seen by a nurse, who did a brief examination but seemed to be more knowledgeable than the one at the swift care clinic. He said that I needed an ultrasound to determine how badly the tendon was ruptured, and again, that due to the holiday they could not do it that day and I would need to come back the next day at 9:00am. I gathered myself up, left the A&E department, and decided to take a bus back to the city centre to save on taxi fare. I got home around 7:00am after picking up some fast food for dinner. I hadn’t filed my U.S. taxes yet, so given that it was the final day to submit them, I finished those off online then wrote an email to my superiors at Mazars to inform them of my situation and that I would not be working on Tuesday.
Today I returned back to the Blackrock Clinic by bus for the ultrasound, arriving shortly after 9:00am. The waiting room only had a couple of people in it, but it gradually became more crowded as I waited to be called. The same woman at reception was there as yesterday, so she already knew who I was, and there was no additional fee or registration I needed to complete. After waiting awhile, the nurse who saw me came out to the waiting room to tell me that i was scheduled in for the ultrasound at 10:00am. It was closer to 10:15am when someone from the radiology arrived to take me down to their department. I waited only a brief time in a smaller waiting room that had several people seated in it. The ultrasound technician / nurse was friendly and spent about 1/2 hour or so taking images of my elbow and shoulder from different angles and depths. She called in another technician / nurse to take a look at the images, and after going through them told me that it looked like the tendon was almost completely torn. He said it’s like celery — the stalk was snapped but there were some fibres on the outside still intact. I was not entirely surprised by this news. I was told to return to the A&E department, where I was seen by the same nurse who saw me yesterday. He told me that they would refer me to an orthopedic specialist who would evaluate the ultrasound images and determine what course of treatment to recommend. In all likelihood, I’ll probably need to undergo surgery to reattach the tendon to the bone, as unlike muscle injuries it won’t heal on its own. The ultrasound cost €185, and again, I had to pay up front and then submit a claim for partial reimbursement I returned home by bus, made some lunch, sent an email update to my superiors at work, and rested for the remainder of the afternoon. The orthopedic specialist’s secretary called and confirmed an appointment for Thursday at 9:30am, which all things considered seemed like a quick turnaround. The appointment would be at Tallaght University Hospital, a public hospital, where the doctor also practiced. I called my insurance company and was reassured me that I was eligible for 50-75% reimbursement of the charged so far, and that they had a contractual relationship with the specialist and so that consultant would also be included in my coverage. That was reassuring. At the end of the workday, a colleague from Mazars called to check in on me, which was very thoughtful. As long as my arm is immobilized in the sling, I don’t feel any pain, so I think I’ll be able to work as my hand is fully functionally. I’ll have to setup the keyboard so that I don’t have to move my arm, and I’ll have to use the mouse with my left hand, but it’s doable.
In the evening, my friend CJ offered to come over to help some monitor arms I had obtained for my desk (one of the Amazon packages that was delivered on Sunday). My at-home work setup is now much better laid out, with my laptop screen and external monitor positioned side-by-side. I treated to Chinese for dinner that I ordered for delivery. Other friends have been supportive and have offered to help out, so overall I feel OK about the situation with my arm. I’m taking things one day at a time.
Until next time….
