Happy Cast-Off Day!

Today was the big day to get the cast off! What a glorious day it has been too!

When the cast was put on three weeks ago it was pretty uncomfortable. It became very tight if I left my arm below my heart and tended to cause my wrist to throb. Holding my hand above my heart caused the blood to drain out and restore balance to The Force, but it was tedious. Still, I've been able to type, which means I could go to work, and I've been getting along pretty well.

The second week of the cast was comfortable. The wrist needed the support and the cast was just loose enough to be warm and comfy on the arm. But the third week, well that's when the itching began. In the past I've had a good laugh at people in casts trying to scratch an itch, and now it was my turn. I found large flat spoon handles to work pretty well, but everyone seems to have their favorite method.

The other funky thing is the amount of skin that started sloughing off. It occurs to me that our hands lose a bit of skin all the time, but we use them so much we barely notice it. But with a cast, I noticed I was leaving small DNA samples everywhere I stopped, a veritable shower of small skin particles. I heard somewhere that you lose around 10 lbs of skin a year and I used to think that was remarkable; but after seeing how much came off my hands, I think it's a pretty conservative estimate.

Last night was Cast-Off Eve, and today was the big event.

I arrived at Dr. Jurist's office and wished everyone a happy Cast-Off Day. The nurses & women behind the desk wished the same to me and apologized for not having a cake. Oh well, maybe next year.

Taking a cast off it quick and painless. It is also loud. They use a power tool that is sort of part saw and part hand mixer; it vibrates really fast and will cut through stiff material quickly, but won't harm your skin. They cut the cast in front and back, then use a reverse-pliers tool to pry it off.

Seeing my arm again reminded me once again how much I love these body parts of mine! The wrist looks a bit worse for wear, but I recognized the little buckaroo and was pleased to see him doing so well!



The small tape-bandages have been on under the cast the entire time. I thought for sure they were curling and causing the arm to itch, but they were intact the entire time.

With the cast off, it was time for X-rays. Check these babies out:


You really have to look carefully to see the fracture lines now! Dr. Jurist was pretty excited about these pictures, everything lines up perfectly and it's really healing well. I told him I love the pictures, but I'm biased because it's me. He said he loves the pictures, but he's biased because it's his work. Big love fest for the pictures...

The doc had me move the hand around. I've secretly been moving it as much as I could over the past week, squeezing a soft ball with my fingers and trying to work it a bit. I've also been running, having a belief in the healing power of blood being pumped through the system. I think this helped.

My movement exceeded expectations. I can bend the wrist more than you would think. I can make a fist. And it will turn both ways. Things are looking pretty good at this stage in the game.

The doc and I agreed to try exercising it by myself without going to physical therapy. We'll try it for two weeks, then reevaluate. He thinks I could do it on my own and wants to see me try.

In the meanwhile, I need to wear a removable brace. I can't pull or lift anything, but I can move the wrist and do exercises. And type. I need to have the brace on whenever I move around just in case I hit the wrist, it won't take much of a hit to set it back.

So here's a picture of the arm today:


One of the most amazing things about this experience is how common this injury is. I will wager I've met more than 20 people who have a scar exactly like this one! If I started a club for people who have had this injury, we'd need a pretty big hall to hold meetings! Someone at work is even recovering from it at the same time, it really is common. As an aside, I told Greg that with my titanium plate I am going to start a second career with the X-men as Bottle Opener Man; he said he is going to be Set-Off-Airport-Security Man, but he thinks his secret identity will be blown every time he travels.

I still wish I would have gotten retractable claws.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about a new project: Broken Wrist, The Musical. I think it has BIG potential!

I'll update this blog if anything interesting happens, but for sure will report in April 12, after my next appointment. I'm moving into the recovery phase, getting close to the time when I can take this baby out and open 'er up, and see what she'll do.

Central Casting

Today was my big day, or at least the day I have been looking forward too. The swelling in my arm has gone down steadily since the operation, and the half-cast ace bandage thing was getting loose. Every day my fingers move with less pain, and I've been able to sleep a little easier. Last night was the first night I didn't sleep like a baby: wake up every two hours and cry...

Because the back half of my arm was unsupported, I haven't been able to use it for anything. Not so much as hang a towel from it without incurring undue pain. The other day I really, really wanted to go for a run, as the sun was shining and the roads dry and I have been doing nothing since the accident. But even movement caused me pain, so no run. Pretty pathetic. It drives me crazy not being able to help my wife and family around the house. I'm not someone that likes to sit around and be pampered.

This morning I went to see Dr. Jurist and check progress, I was pretty excited. The office was very busy, but I finally tore myself away from a 6 month old Newsweek magazine was led into an exam room. A nurse used scissors to cut off my bandages, revealing a long scar with 25 stitches. She asked me to lay my arm down to remove stitches, but first I took a picture!



So you might think it looks kinda gross, but I haven't seen my arm in almost two weeks and I was pretty happy to see it is still there, and in fact it has absolutely been thriving under all of those bandages.

Before the nurse took any stitches out, she led me into X-ray to take some pictures. It just doesn't get any better than this, I was hoping and praying I could get an x-ray to see what had happened! Dr. Jurist saw me in the x-ray room and stuck his head in, "you're going to love these pictures!" he exclaimed. I'm pumped now!

Back in the exam room the nurse took out a single stitch, then Dr. Jurist came in and said he would do that if she would fetch the pictures, we're excited to see them. I didn't say much as I was counting: 25 in all. The doc joked that he probably could have done it in less, but wanted me to have a good story to tell.

I've been flexing my fingers a lot every day trying to loosen them up, and the doc is pleased. I can't do much with the thumb, but the bandages prevented me from moving it. Hopefully I'll be able to wiggle around more with the cast on.

Now we get to see the x-rays:



So the first and most obvious thing is that I didn't get retractable claws. I expressed my disappointment to the good doctor, and he apologized. Still, look at the way dem bones line up, pretty impressive! You can see the titanium plate and screws in the lower part of the arm, and the pins coming off of the plate in the upper. I also notice that the plate has an interesting cut out in the middle: it looks for all the world like a bottle opener. I have no idea how I'm going to get to it to open a bottle, but I appreciate the thought.

You can see in the picture that the bones are not knit, but they are in nearly perfect alignment and things are starting to fuse. Actually, the bones could only be aligned better if they were held using zip ties, I'm convinced that is a patentable idea.

The doc is very pleased with how things worked out. He says these plates are sort of a new thing, they used to have to really open the arm up in order to put the necessary supports in, and now it's all pretty simple. Just in time too, he says he was getting too old to be cutting on people like that.

Dr. Jurist thought it was cool that I was taking pictures of everything, so we threw the original x-rays up for easy comparison:



This picture was taken before the initial reduction, so you can see that the top of the Radius is pushed way down and the hand is out of place. Now that I've been looking at these for a while, I realize how messed up it was.

The doc told me that often at this point they often provide a removable splint, but given the severity of this break they will cast it for 3 weeks, then we'll go to the splint. I was able to chose from a number of cast colors, but they were all varying shades of ugly. I decided to go with black, it goes with everything.



Notice that I have a lot more finger showing. Yes, I can finally type with 2 hands again! It isn't completely natural as you typically twist your wrist to contact the keyboard, but I've typed this entire blog entry in roughly the time it takes me to do a paragraph or two! I feel like lightening on the keyboard, comparatively speaking.

In exactly 3 weeks from tomorrow, I go for my next exam. They will remove the cast at that point and put on a removable brace. I'm still 6 weeks from starting physical therapy and regaining my full range of motion, but it's clear I'm making progress. The doc says I'm probably about 8 weeks from getting on a bike, but it's something we'll be watching. Evidently he had a patient last year who had the same operation and was able to do the Mt Washington hill climb
four months later. Cool! I've already missed registration for the hill climb this year, but wasn't planning on racing it anyway.

jump pic

Hey, I found a picture of the jump I went off at the Waterville Valley web site, check it out.

What's next?

I now have another cast, or at least another half cast with ace bandages. I have an appointment next Wednesday to remove the stitches and put on a real cast. I've included before & after pictures. Check out the evil condition of my hand in the 'before' shot. In these pictures they don't look all that much different, but there is at least 4 lbs & 30' of ace bandage separating them.

One other note: I've always heard how great Percaset is. I didn't like it at all, and didn't take it beyond one dose at home; I'd rather deal with the pain. It's been 48 hours since the operation and I still can't focus as well as usual and I blame the drugs. There are plenty of people who go through really serious stuff and I have little doubt that pharmaceuticals help them make it, I'm glad they are available; but I'll avoid them when I can, thank you very much.