A Fractured Wrist...oops

Woke up at 7:00am, slowly got ready with just my left hand again, and then set off for school. As I was walking from the parking lot to the school entrance, one of my favourite kids from 4-2 noticed my wrapped up wrist, and pointed to it and made this cute as noise to express “broken wrist?”, it was so cute. There were a lot of teachers away today sick, and 1-3 (10 kids away sick with the flu!) and 4-1 have to be quarantined from tomorrow onwards. Since 3-2 is away on their quarantine, I had both periods 1 & 2 free, so just slowly did prep work and English board work. 5-1’s teacher was like “What happened to your hand?” “Did you fight?” and the funny thing was that he said this in English haha.

Had my first class of the day with 3-3 in period 3. We started out doing the same chant that Grade 2 did when they were on their stationary unit. Then we played the keyword game for revision, and then we played bingo. Instead of it just being me saying the words though, I made a silhouette powerpoint for them to guess and we played bingo that way. For the second round of bingo I had the kids come to the front and do gestures, and then their partners would flip the respective card over for bingo. The kids absolutely loved both rounds of bingo, especially the gestures round. The best thing about today was that every single kid was active and fully participating, it was great. Next up was 3-1, back from their quarantine. They were also great today – same as 3-3 they loved the two rounds of bingo, and everyone participated in doing the gestures. I also remembered to incorporate the homeroom teacher into helping run more of the activities, so that was good too.

Lunch today was rice with tofu and pork and some other vegetables, seaweed salad, and egg + mushroom soup. Thankfully it was all stuff that could be easily eaten with a spoon, so that was good for me and my left hand. Spent the lunch break in the staffroom, and showed the tea-lady my fall yesterday since it was captured on the GoPro haha. She was very interested in analysing my fall and everything. Cleaning time was smooth today, all good kids rostered on this week. Got off work early-ish just before 16:00 so that I could go to a doctor/physio that another ALT recommended to get my wrist properly checked over. Aaaaaand it turns out that my wrist is actually fractured…that was a huge surprise! The clinic was really nice and modern, a lot of activity and people there, and it was actually filled with a lot of students in their sports uniforms. You don’t have to make an appointment, so you just rock up to the reception and tell them what’s wrong. They then take down your details and give you a waiting number. While you’re sitting there waiting, a nurse will come up to you and help you fill out a medical questionnaire to pinpoint your injury and cause. I had brought a book along with me to read so the wait didn't feel too long. They called my name and number, and then I went to see the doctor. He asked a few questions about whether I was a student or working, and then proceeded to check my wrist. He pressed it much harder than the ski resort nurse had done and there was definitely a spot where it really hurt. Had an x-ray done afterwards in a separate room, and then waited a bit before seeing the doctor again. He told me it was a light fracture, and then did some further checks using a live view x-ray like machine thing. I was definitely super surprised to hear it was actually a fracture, cause I thought if it were a fracture, it would be a lot more painful? But at least it’s not completely broken. They gave me an estimated 5 weeks for it to fully heal (no snowboarding for 5 weeks noooooooo), and a wrist supporter (since I live alone they advised that a cast wouldn’t be practical). After that I had a 20 minute ultrasonic sound treatment (I definitely had to search this word in the dictionary haha) in the rehab room, and then went back to the reception to pay my bill. With health insurance, the whole appointment (with x-rays included and everything) only cost ¥1620! Though I did have to pay ¥2500 for the wrist supporter. Drove back home, did some laundry, and had kimchi rice for dinner.