new post: A week one-handed

_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/