Today I’m grateful for my body’s ability to quickly regenerate itself.
At my follow-up appointment on Monday last week, the surgeon said he wasn’t happy with the way the bones in my wrist had moved since the operation. (He seemed as disappointed as I was!) So he booked me in for a follow-up on Friday.
After Friday’s operation, I felt like I’d been mauled by a bear. I was in so much pain, and was pumped full of enough drugs to kill a roomful of Princes, yet none of it was having any effect on me.
Eventually, they managed to tranq me up enough to send home, where I spent the next day in agony because we’d used up my limit of acetaminphen — so Percocet was off the menu.
Fast-forward two days, and I’m mentally present, and my arm is sore but that kind of tickly-good sore of something that’s getting better.
I stopped by the hospital yesterday to book my follow-up appointment and get my painkillers refilled, and as I’d hoped I might, I got to speak to the surgeon, who talked me through what he’d done:
- reposition and secure everything with the first plate
- pop a carpal bone back up where it should be
- put a long brace across the top of my arm to protect everything else and add some traction so the joint will be able to flex properly. That will have to come out after eight weeks.
He warned me that it’s likely I will only get 75 to 80 percent of the strength back in that arm. We’ll see about that one.
Next week, I go in for another follow-up, where my casts will come off — hallelujah! — and we’ll figure out what happens next (like getting the brace removed in PEI).