14 Jul 2012

A tale of wristy woe

A long time ago (1990), in a far away place (Bourne), a five year old girl punched a french window. The glass was illegally thin and the girl ripped her right arm to the bone, from wrist to elbow. By miracle or chance, the girl's radial artery was missed by millimetres.
Some plastic surgery, fifty stitches and a couple of nights in hospital, and she was home. She was five, she was resilient and, (filthy, thick shark-bite scar aside) she was fine.

But alas, the girl grew older and larger. The scar tissue from the repair of her tendons and ligaments did not grow with her, and her right hand was permanently weakened. However, by this time, word processing had become the norm. Handwriting was old fashioned, and she joined the workforce entirely computer literate, confident that she would never have to handwrite anything longer than a shopping list again. The only other lingering ill effect was a lifetime phobia of wrists.

Then she started a degree module with a three hour, handwritten exam at the end of it.

DO YOU SEE THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE?

I have a weak grip in my right hand. When the weather changes, it gets worse. So, I can imagine in mid-October, it's going to be hard to write. And that's when my exam is.
I need to start strengthening exercises NOW. When I say it's weak, sometimes all the power goes out and it's like I have a wet fish attached to my wrist. I cannot be doing with THAT when I have loads to write.

In joyful news of joy, I achieved 80% on my last TMA and have now achieved the pass grade on continuous assessment, with two more TMAs to go. I am HAPPY about this :-D

3 comments:

  1. Well done on your TMA!

    Can't you appeal having to do a handwritten exam on the grounds of disability discrimination? You can't be the only candidate who has trouble writing...

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  2. I don't know. I've asked on the forum, but nobody's replied as it's the weekend and tends to be quiet. I'm going to ask student support if I can take in a gel pad to rest my wrist on. It's so ANNOYING, it's not something I've even thought about much for years outside of "Oh, my wrist aches and I need to pick everything up with my other hand for a bit". I don't consider it a disability, probably because I was lucky to not exsanguinate or lose my hand/arm after the accident. Bah!

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  3. I would think that they should take it into consideration, a note from your doctor saying that the irreperable damage in your arm/wrist means that you can't use your hand for prolonged periods of time should do it. Fingers crossed for you on this one. x

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