My arm has been free for three weeks and is almost back to its usual self. Over its time of entrapment, I’ve learnt and experienced a number of things:

• I dislike typing one handed. It is very time consuming and it hurts when two normally share the work.
• It can be tricky to remove a coffee cup lid with just the left-hand and unassisted. I have now managed this after a bit of practice.
• It is possible to scuba dive with one hand as long as you can do a windmill-like action with your right arm so if your breathing apparatus falls out of your mouth, you can retrieve it (there’s a whole technique to this that I was trained in).
• I’m quite stubborn, impatient and not particularly good at asking for help if I think I should be able to do it myself. This has caused some amusement for my team members who were always ready to help.
• I can now write left-handed. It took me one week to be able to write ‘s’ the correct way around.
• Painkillers should also be called ‘stomach upseters’. I stopped using these as soon as I could. There was no point in making my wrist feel better and my stomach feel worse. Let it be painful where it’s supposed to be painful – at least it stopped me from trying to do too much with it.
• Even though water can go through the cast, fresh air seems to be trapped on the outside – this means it is very hot to run even if there is a cool breeze blowing.
• My work colleagues are very understanding, helpful and full of Chinese medicinal advice. Apparently I shouldn’t have put my arm in water at all as it affects the natural balance of things (yin yang). I should expect a lot of problems when I’m older. I told them I had a lot of problems with my wrist already so I’d just wait and see. They think I’m pretty lucky in general so they think this should continue.
• I can now tell my accident story in less than fifty words. It generally starts with “I broke my wrist running. Yes, I know I shouldn’t have been running on my hands but…”
• There are muscles in the thumb and pinkie finger area that shrink away to nothing without use. Take a look at your hand now. Those mounds are actually muscle. So give them a workout and type. That way you can say you’ve exercised.
• It is possible for the bone on my wrist (the one that is actually joined to my arm) to stick out even further. When the cast came off, my arm was even skinnier than normal and the skin was all puckered around that particular joint. This is what I think it will look like when I’m 98. It is a reminder to moisturise and exercise.
• Finger skin all peeled off on the hand that is trapped to reveal fresh new skin. This skin was very sensitive. Especially when I cooked spaghetti, tipped it out of the pan and into the colander, using my fingers as an interim straining tool. I still don’t know how they got in the way.
• The sound of one hand clapping…

Thanks to George Michael for the title to this post.