questions about hand injury recovery, dead leg, post-rape effects, and complex-PTSD

[pico_the_great]

Hey hey, Lil Details! I gots you another question here:

My character, due to the unfortunate circumstance of having spent a few hours with some truly awful people with a hammer, is now sporting:

1) a broken hand (metacarpals 4 and 5 broken; ring and littel fingers broken at both joints)
2) some kind of quadriceps contusion, and
3) some other

Comments

[anonymous]

I've broken metacarpals before, as well as lots of finger breaks, through trauma but probably less so than a hammer, (though horses hooves and teeth are pretty hard and painful too). Also normally not all at the same time. I broke three metacarpals but my finger bones were intact at the time. After the first couple of times of having gone to the doctor and had them xray and just tape them together I decided that I could just do it at home. However these were simple breaks, not compound or crush injuries. I'm assuming if someone went to town on a hand with a hammer it might be more significant damage. IF you want the hand to be functional in this setting I would say a single hammer blow to each area would suffice, not repeated ones to crush the bones. It will also significantly complicate things if these are compound fractures, leading to more chance of infection and death

[anonymous]

Re: grinding teeth - you can definitely hear it and it's a startling sound. My niece with whom I occasionally share a room at grandma's has been grinding her teeth since she was a toddler. She's 8 now and the noise still wakes me up.

[tylik]

I've only broken a finger once, and it was pretty minor. A lot of anxiety for me at the time, because I played harp and piano, but... it's gonna hurt, but if she can avoid using the hand, it's just going to be another thing hurting. Possible the worst by night. For me there's a lot I can tune out by day, which is still enough to make it hard to sleep - but then I haven't a lot of talent for sleeping. I have broken metatarsals twice, now, and each time continued walking on them for about a week and a half before doing anything. (Extenuating circumstances, and a kind of ridiculous pain tolerance, especially in those circumstances. Actually, the first one I only dealt with because I was seeing a doctor for something else, and he grabbed my foot during the exam and I kind of squeaked and almost bounced off the ceiling. He told me it was broken, I disagreed, so he poked at it until I decided that maybe he had a point. And the second one mostly because after it didn't clear up after a bit, I kind of recognized it from the first one. I was

[tylik]

You can keep walking through a lot of pain. The injuries you are describing sound to me like things more likely to slow her down a bit than to really make it hard to travel - especially since it sounds like she's really motivated. For me, there's an odd point when I realize that most kinds of pain really don't keep me from putting one foot in front of the other at all. (Broken bones or injuries to the joints of the feet, legs or pelvis are probably the big exceptions, and even then, you can have lesser versions that suck but that don't keep you from moving

[gelsey]

I can only reply to the "can you hear a person grind their teeth at night" question. The answer is definitely yes. I grind my teeth and have had roommates comment on it in the past. (Also in daybto day thinfs, I do it unconsciously when stressed or when a horrible headache is comingnon. My workmate has commented on it many times) it's also a bit of an anxiety thing for me.

Also, I've woken myself with the sound of grinding my teeth, and your character might do that too.

[the_physicist]

g) bruising, lots of it, all over, is pretty likely, but it depends on the exact situation you put your MC in? the extent of genital tearing depends on a lot of factors too, i'm sure. i mean, it can be extremely bad, or barely a problem (luckily it wasn't a problem for me). Maybe age and things like that come into it as would the actions of the rapists. just as with the other injuries. most of it can be the rapists beating you up too i mean... and there's also all the STI stuff and so on. So as for what will heal first... depends on the exact extent of the injuries, but just from the vibe I'm getting from what you wrote, you probably aren't going for such serious injuries, so probably the worst would be the leg, that could take months to heal after all