08 November 2010

Broken, Fractured...and Dislocated - Part VIII

I have not had a good night sleep since my injury.  The pain from either swelling, numbness, pressure, healing...you name it, would wake me up.  I was getting about one to two hours of sleep before I wake up.  Walking around in the middle of the night helps the blood circulate.  This walking and pacing usually lasted about an hour before the pain subsided and I was able to go back to sleep.  On average, I would get about four hours sleep per night.  Of course, I would try to make it up the sleep hours during the day...but again, I would only get about ninety minutes at a time.

A few days later, I had a check up with Dr. Shin.  According to him, everything looked good.  I got to finally see the x-rays that showed the titanium plated the the seven titanium screws that secured the plate to the bone.  Awesome!  He also prescribed me some sleeping pills and more painkillers.  I need both to help me through the night.  I still wake up a few times in the middle of the night,but usually fall back asleep in about ten minutes.  On occasion, I need to walk off the pain.  Yeah, it sucks...but that is the price one pays for titanium.

Dr. Shin also 'prescribed' me six weeks of physical therapy.  When I started, I had limited movement in my wrist, and very little strength.  I am about half way through the six weeks, and movement and flexibility is at about 85%.  Strength?  Well, we are still working on that.  Doc says it will take time and I should have full movement and strength.  I still have numbness in the pad of the thumb and index finger.  They say that will take time, six months to a year, to see if it gets to 100%.  It is already better than a few weeks ago.  Yeah, six months...so when the playoffs start?

The road to recovery is long and slow...like a long and windy road, that leads to your door.  Dork!  I have been working half days, still pumping out product.  Told you I am a fucking bad ass.  I even went to the recent convention and participated in one of the events two days after the surgery.  So, you are all caught up in the events that kept me from updating my blog...other than my usual laziness.  Thanks for reading, and if you want to see some of the pictures of my injury, scar, incision, stitches, and progression, you can go here:

Warning:  Some pictures may be disturbing to some...yet totally awesome to others.  Click here.


I will be updating the photos every week to track the healing process.  I only wish I had better 'before' pictures.  So, am I going to play hockey when this is all healed?  Hell yeah!

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Go to Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI - Part VII

2 comments:

mikeH said...

Dude, I'm shocked. I stopped on your page a couple weeks ago, but I landed on the day (October 26) you posted more Back-to-the-Future info. I didn't read down the page thinking you were just geeking out, so now I've had the chance to go back over the whole story.

Hope you're at least feeling better, obviously it hasn't stopped you from typing. I've never had bones pinned back together, but my knee surgery gave me a taste of the drugs (great), the "nerve block" (like my leg belonged to someone else), and the pain (damn it hurt).

How long until you're "normal"? My physio program was more like 6 months, I would have thought for hands it would take a lot longer to get everything back.

walkinvisible said...

DUUUDE !@!K@*!(^@@#

mikeH just told me about this whole bidness and i just had a look... whoah. jeebus. i hope you're healing well n' all that, and i'll read this all shortly.

<3 much love
wi