For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I injured my wrist snowboarding over a month ago. I went up for a jump, pull a great move, and crashed.... O well. Fun times. Unfortunately, I did a slight bit of damage to my wrist but like normal, I decided to try and ignore it for a couple weeks to see if it would go away. It didn't. After going to Memphis Whitewater's Creek Week and then competing at the North Alabama Whitewater Festival the very next weekend, there was a continuous downward spiral in my wrist. By the time I got back from the North Alabama Whitewater Fest, I couldn't even hold my paddle well. It even hurt to hold up a pen and don't even get me started on how it felt to try and write notes in class!
I finally decided to go to the doctor where they did X-rays, really convinced I had fractured it, and found no evidence of a fracture. I had to schedule an MRI and I was put in a brace over the next several weeks. By the time I had my MRI results read, my wrist was getting better and the doctors found no tearing significant enough in my muscle and ligament tissue for surgery.
They did however find that my wrist was definitely sprained and probably as a result, I had a ganglion cyst that had formed in my wrist (1 cm x 1 cm x 0.5 cm). Luckily, it's a small one that probably formed as a result of the sprain. My wrist may have been broken, but I really waited to long to reall be able to tell for sure. I gave it time to heal before I went in.
Long story short, I'm now allowed to paddle as long as I keep my wrist braced or taped (or both) and I stick with my physical therapy. I'll have 1 month of physical therapy and the one more appointment and I should be cleared. The cyst may go away on its own; but if it doesn't, it might require surgery to be removed, or simply poped. I'm pretty sure it'll just go away on it's own! :-)
