blog/_posts/2024-04-30-a-week-one-handed.md

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permalink: "/{{ year }}/{{ month }}/{{ day }}/a-week-one-handed"
title: "A week one-handed"
published_date: "2024-04-30 09:19:00 +0200"
layout: post.liquid
data:
  route: blog
excerpt: |
  Just over a week ago I played handball for exactly 1 minute and 54 seconds.
  I blocked my opponent, dislocated a finger on my right hand, got a yellow card and left for the hospital.
  A brief five hours later my hand was in a cast, immobilized for a week.
  Here's how that went.
---

Just over a week ago I played handball for exactly 1 minute and 54 seconds.
I blocked my opponent, dislocated a finger on my right hand, got a yellow card and left for the hospital.
A brief five hours later [my hand was in a cast](https://hachyderm.io/@jer/112310420798408058), immobilized for a week.

Then I had to deal with being one-handed for the rest of a week.
A busy week of course.
To my luck I'm _mostly_ left handed!
So here's a brief summary of how things went.  
_This is a fully personal account, everyone's situation is different and I was lucky enough to only have the plaster cast for a week._

## The easy things

A whole lot of people reached out!
Half of them with get well wishes, the other half came with the jokes ("fingers crossed", "high five!", "finger food for dinner?").
I would most likely do the same, so yeah ... I enjoyed those jokes.
Some people also reached out with tips.
It seems about every other person had a broken arm or finger or alike at some point.

The first two days were the most annoying ones.
The arm was unusable and for fear of hurting it more I wouldn't even use it to hold things down or up.
Luckily by day 3 that went away and the arm was used for just about everything, the two free fingers even to hold stuff.

I slept surprisingly well.
I can sleep on my back or on the side without problems, so the immobilized arm never got in the way.

I usually use the computer mouse with my right hand, like probably the vast majority of computer users.
But because I'm actually left handed switching the mouse to the left hand was not much of an issue, except for one thing:
all three computer mice I have at home are ergonomically formed, made to be used with the right hand.
So while moving the mouse pixel-perfect worked I was still stuck with a somewhat awkward mouse hold.
I also didn't switch the buttons around.

## The hard things

Tying your shoe.
It's not gonna happen with only one hand.  

Hanging laundry.
It's possible, but it takes a lot more time. So does taking it off and folding.

Showering.
The cast must not get wet!
If you know it's for only a week maybe you get away with not showering for that time.
Beyond that get yourself some water-tight protection to wrap the arm in.

Putting on a jacket.
You either hope for warm weather,  so that a t-shirt is enough (though I wouldn't want a sweaty arm in a cast).
Or you put on a jacket. I hope you have a stretchy one with wide arms.  

Biking.
Not happening. Can't break, can't go.

Cooking.
Maybe skip that for a bit. You really don't want to risk injuring the other hand.
Your options are not that limited.
Sushi works perfectly with just one hand (tip from my colleague).
So does pizza.
And if your good with chopsticks there's really no limit in what you can eat without making a mess.

Typing.
I'm a decently fast typer and have a bunch of shortcuts that I use frequently.
Some of them are so ingrained in muscle memory that once I only had one hand I couldn't even remember what the shortcuts were.
There are options like [Mirrorboard] that mirror both sides of a keyboard to only one, but I didn't bother to set it up this time.
It might help with the general typing, but shortcuts would still not work as is.
What did work much better and was very enjoyable was voice control using [Talon].
Really, try it out.
Set yourself a [voice control challenge].
It takes a bit to learn the alphabet, but then it just works.
I did not end up programming it, but I briefly tried [Cursorless] and I can very much see the usefulness of that.

## Two-handed again

After a week I got the cast removed and need to [wear a plastic splint for a couple of days](https://hachyderm.io/@jer/112354088043087458).
The hand is usable again, the finger is recovering.
The week was exhausting, one-handed everything takes longer.
If you can avoid it don't ruin your hands.
If you do, know that it's not the end.

[talon]: https://talonvoice.com/
[cursorless]: https://www.cursorless.org/
[voice control]: https://xeiaso.net/blog/voice-control-talon/
[voice control challenge]: https://xeiaso.net/blog/voice-control-challenge/
[mirrorboard]: https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/08/14/mirrorboard-a-one-handed-keyboard-layout-for-the-lazy/