Arm Update

My broken arm is turning out to be a lot more trouble than expected! Here's the story...

MY PURPLE CAST

As soon as we got back from Denver we needed to schedule an appointment with our doctors to get a more permanent cast. Our insurance switched over from Aetna to Kaiser on the first of the year (sucks for Kaiser!) so we jumped through a couple HMO hoops and found an orthopedic doctor to see on Wednesday morning.

This appointment was not fun. First they found out from the xrays that my bones were not healing in the proper alignment and needed to be reset AGAIN. Let's just say it hurt like a mother and I was not nearly as tough as the first reset. Here I am forcing a smile afterwards while they were putting my cast on. Although, I was pretty excited that I could get a purple cast.

Then, the doctor informed me, not so sensitively, that my bones would most likely shift again and this cast probably wouldn't work and I should be mentally prepared to have surgery (and, by the way, would I want to be resuscitated if my heart stopped during the procedure??) That shook me up a bit but Joey was there to support me and cheer me up. He bought me a nice relaxing tea and a delicious ruglach from the hospital coffee stand.

ONE ARMED CHALLENGES

That next week,  I realized a lot of things that are difficult to do with a broken arm. I thought I would share my insights with all of you. Here is my list. You'll see right off the bat that WRITING is not so good...

Since you probably can't read the list, I'll type them here:

1. Putting on mascara- I've poked myself in the eye and smeared it on my face a couple times
2. Writing and typing...obviously
3. Buttering toast - it's a massacre 
4. Buttoning buttons, although I'm getting better
5. Putting things in bags, like my cheeze its
6. Opening a bottle of beer- although it's totally manageable if you use your feet too
7. Cutting a bagel in half...or cutting anything 
8. Putting on a shirt and pulling your sleeves over the cast without ripping them
9. Hugging - a one-armed hug just isn't the same 
10. Opening a water bottle - and I DONT recommend placing the bottle between your legs to stabilize, especially at a client meeting...it didnt end well for me 

That's just to name a few. Eating a pudding cup and making a ponytail are also impossible.  It has been a little frustrating but thankfully Joey has been great in helping me out!

SURGERY

The next Wednesday, I went in for my check up and the xrays confirmed the mean doctor's suspicion. My bones were even more out of alignment than the day I broke them. Normal bone position is typically 10-12 degrees. My bone was angled at -22 degrees - which means I was about 30 degrees off. My options were to let it heal incorrectly and lose 30 degrees rotation in my wrist and risk future complications, let them break it again and try to reset it (ouch! no thank you!) or inserting a metal plate and screws surgically. We decided on surgery and my purple cast was removed. 

They scheduled my surgery for the next morning - then bumped me to Friday morning. I was pretty impressed with such a quick turn around. Since I would be under general anesthesia for the surgery, I couldn't eat after midnight the night prior. Joey was so helpful in making sure I followed all the rules. :)

This was my first time ever having surgery so I was pretty scared. I was a little bit of a baby. Everything happened so fast that morning though, I didn't have too much of a chance to freak out. The procedure took about 45 min and they out a t shaped plate with screws on the underside of my wrist. It took me 3-4 hours to really shake out of the anesthesia. Joey got this beauty shot of me in the recovery room. 

They wrapped my arm in a cast like splint, that allows for swelling. Next week I should get a real cast (hopefully purple again) that I will wear for 3-4 weeks before starting rehab. So far the pain has been reasonably tolerable. The worst part has been the side effects from the pain medication. I've been really drowsy and nauseas which makes it hard to get off the couch.  I'm not much of a tv watcher so I've been really bored and a little grumpy...

So that's what has been going on. I cant believe all of this happened just from a little innocent snowboarding. People keep asking me if I will snowboard again next year. I really don't know. I've never been much of a risk taker and  now that I know that I'm not invincible, like I previously thought, I really may be too scared. We'll see though. One step at a time.