Friday, November 20, 2009

Visit With Doc; Great News

Visited with my surgeon today. We take off the splint. Whoa nelly that felt great! "I make a lot of friends this way" says the tech. Wound check is good. No sign of infection. A relief. I lost a co-worker two years ago to staph after "routine" surgery. Doc and I debated on suture removal. He gave me a choice: remove the stitches today and keep the splint, or come back next week to remove stitches and move to a movable brace. That's a choice? Let's get it movin!

I'm now in a removable brace. Halley-looo-ya I can remove it and shower normally. That's a huge QOL improvement! Right now my arm is stiff. Including my uninjured wrist. This is from some (little) swelling and immobilization. Joints like to move. The elbow range of motion is pretty small. I've got exercises to do. I played around with it for about an hour and it's improving already. Although the ends of my motion range are kinda painful, the middle is pain free and smooth. Doc said "Not to brag, but it's a great repair." I don't mind him bragging.

I'm out of the splint, but the arm's pretty useless. No movement restrictions, but I'm not allowed any weight. But considering I'm 11 days out of surgery and out of immobilization is pretty awesome. I'll have more to report physically, and philosophically over the next few days.

2 comments:

Jane said...

glad you are on the mend. Wow - that's a lot of stitches! Don't push it physically - allow yourself to heal.

But now you'll have a cool scar and look tuff!

Dave said...

Thanks for the warm thoughts! Donno about tuff... there's been a lot of meowing!!