Life without casts started with a sense of anticipation and adventure, but only a few hours into it I began to feel the deflation of the elated excitement. Uh. I had arms but I was afraid to use them. I was afraid to have anyone touch them. I was afraid to bump them. It was the weirdest feeling. It almost felt like they were not a part of my body, but some new and foreign glass like objects I was carrying around. Besides that – I could hardly move the wrists and had not much strength in the palm and the fingers either. My right hand was a little stronger then the left, however, I could not even straighten the right wrist let alone extend it back. My left thumb could hardly move and half of the fingers on the left hand I could not even straighten let alone draw into a fist. Neither hand could do the later. And the skin of the top of my arms, where the breaks had been was so sensitive, that washing my hands under warm water felt like scalding. I could not touch the top of my arms without feeling like I was rubbing my skin right off. My hyper sensitive skin reacted to any little touch and movement. I kept my arms in long sleeves and kept tying the splints back on much more then I needed to. I slept with the splints on, because I was afraid to crush my own arms at night. I don’t know what happened to the long and heartfelt wish to sleep without the hard casts. It was just too frightening a prospect.
On top of the challenges of new and improved me, I also had to deal with a sudden virus I managed to catch, despite the fact that I had hardly gone out or seen anyone. I had the whole package – the sore throat, the congestion, the headache, the earache, the cough… So, my handful of supplements with my meals doubled. I hardly needed any food after all those vitamins and minerals.
Recovery was slow, both from the stiff wrists as well as the cold. I was on a mission to find a hand specialist to do physiotherapy with, but was in for a real surprise. It’s next to impossible. I should have put myself on a waiting list the day the accident happened. Ha! The physiotherapy challenge was an eye opening experience and a real learning curve. There are private clinics and hospital clinics, clinics that are free and clinics that cost nearly a 100$ an hour, strict physiotherapy and combined with occupational therapy, sports therapy and hand therapy. And even the stuff that is OHIP covered has all these hidden fees for everything. I soon learned to carry bundles of cash with me everywhere. It’s a crazy world out there. They really should have courses that train people in the lingo and tell them how best to set these things up. I’d hate to be a new immigrant with a language barrier or an elderly person and have to be stuck in this system.
Well, after nearly a week of phone calls I ended up back at St. Mikes with an angel, Ross, who is also a specialist in mild torture tactics and does it with a smile and gives you a shoulder to cry on. She’s wonderful and also extremely tough. She’s my kind of a therapist. Especially once she got me the Tylenol 3’s to help with the pain. Ha! Yup, we’re back to narcotics. I’ve been in therapy with her and an OT every single day now for two and a half to three hours a day. I’m in pain almost all the time, because it seems like that’s the only way these hands will ever move again. It’s draining physically and emotionally hard, too. But I am seeing progress. Slow progress, but progress regardless.
I will try and transfer to a private clinic near my house coming week, because getting to St. Mikes is a challenge. I’m hoping that the insurance will cover the private clinic. I think they are supposed to. We have a wonderful lawyer who is helping us with that whole can of worms. Insurance, I mean. I’m so thankful and blessed to have had friends, who had friends, who had friends… I’ve ended up with a great lawyer through Rita B. and had help in many other ways from other friends. I thank the heavens for all of you out there every single day!!!
So long for now…
beta
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
My casts came off a week ago Wednesday. I know it’s not fare that I have not even taken the time to write about it. But that’s just the way it is. This post has been a long and painful process. At the end of one storey there is always the beginning of another…
Last Wednesday I had a hard time hiding my excitement. I had been waiting for the day the casts come off since I was released from the hospital. Naturally, while I was in the hospital I was only waiting for the day I’d be home. When situations like this strike you never look much further then the next step. It’s probably nature’s way of protecting you. Regardless… I was waiting and hoping to get cast free, but I was also very cautious about being too excited, because the surgeon had warned me that not all people heal in the initially expected time frame. I remember sitting in that waiting room amongst a whole slew of others injured or bound in some way or another and thinking to myself – if only I could start moving my arms.
My wish came true much sooner then I had anticipated.
Steve had barely left to park the car and I had signed in just minutes before, when the nurse called my name and I was shuffled off to the room down the hall and believe it or not the casts were just cut off without anyone ever looking at me twice. I hardly had time to prepare myself. It was mildly shocking to say the least. But if you have ever been in a fracture clinic you might know that the appointment only starts with this and there is more, much more to come.
I was sent back out into the waiting room with my arms as bare as they had ever been in the last seven weeks except for the metal pins sticking out of my flesh in all possible directions and the stench of the dead skin following me down the hall and the itchiness and all the hair and the tiny arms in front of me. I swear I had shrunk to half my size. I had never seen anything quite like it. I must admit that I was warned about the smell of the skin being unwrapped from the casts, so, I was prepared for that. I also suspected that there might be more hair then usual on the skin under the casts, but nothing quite prepared me for the gorilla look I sport these days. And then there was the dead layer of skin that kept peeling and peeling and peeling for the next week to follow. And the whole idea of being so unprotected scared the crap out of me. Really. I was too scared to even lower my wrists let alone keep them at my sides. I held them high like a torch, perhaps expecting some Olympic miracle to take place? Who knows? But it was a truly odd sensation. By the time I was called for an x-ray I had managed to peel some of the dead skin cells, but I had hardly moved from my torch like position. It was too frightening. It was too stiff. And the x-ray in itself was a whole test of patience, because they wanted me to bend my wrists out to have them flat on the table even though for more then six weeks I had been held in a forward flex position. What the hell? I was feeling so week by then that I almost passed out. However, the longer I live the more I realize that the human body can take a lot of abuse. They managed to put me in a flat hand on the table position regardless the pain and regardless of the twisted and weird positions my elbows and body had to endure.
By the time the x-ray was over I realized that my “torch” carrying was not just a mechanism built in to protect me from the fright of having my wrists exposed, but a little more then that. I was stiff. I was so stiff that I could not move either of my wrists a millimeter forward or a millimeter back. My fingers moved, but could not make a fist for the life of me. I could not get my palms to lie flat against my face. I could not even hold a coffee cup. It was such a shock. I never thought that it could be this bad after a few weeks of immobilization. I had no IDEA how bad it could be. I was scared. I was scared but I was not going to show it.
Minutes before I got called in to see Dr. Hall, Steve came into the lobby. I did have a wait, but not as long as the first time. Steve came with me to the same little room I had visited a few weeks before and we were again jammed with a few other patients waiting to see the good doctor for a little word, an explanation or some check-up or another. He was as charming as always, spending just enough time with each patient to make them feel important and good, but just short of giving you time to think about any questions or concerns that might arise from the chat. It’s sad, really. And I cannot blame the doctor, because I have now experienced on my own skin how jammed and overburdened our healthcare system can be at times. It’s not really the doc, but just the way it’s all set up.
Dr. Hall spent a few minutes with me. He was charming, as always. Happy with the way the surgery had gone, happy with the way I had healed, happy with my progress. Told me to stick to physiotherapy and moved on to the next patient. What I had coming next was the removal of my pins, which in fact was not a painful process, but rather one that made me sick to the deepest corners of my being. I was asked to lie down and then the metal pins that were in my wrists were removed by a typical, twist-push-n-pull technique of a dentist pulling a tooth. It was not pain, but rather the feeling of something being pulled out from the inside of me that made me sick. The pins were removed quickly and the holes were just covered with gauze, even though some had fair amount of bleeding, which looked frightening to my naked and untrained eye. But all was fine a few days later. And the best part was having an arm back that had no metal components.
But more on that later… The rest of the storey of the last ten days has not yet been edited. Please be patient. I will do my best amongst Physiotherapy and OT, Chiropractor and Acupuncture, Family doctor and Homeopath, Hospital and Clinic to keep you posted.
Last Wednesday I had a hard time hiding my excitement. I had been waiting for the day the casts come off since I was released from the hospital. Naturally, while I was in the hospital I was only waiting for the day I’d be home. When situations like this strike you never look much further then the next step. It’s probably nature’s way of protecting you. Regardless… I was waiting and hoping to get cast free, but I was also very cautious about being too excited, because the surgeon had warned me that not all people heal in the initially expected time frame. I remember sitting in that waiting room amongst a whole slew of others injured or bound in some way or another and thinking to myself – if only I could start moving my arms.
My wish came true much sooner then I had anticipated.
Steve had barely left to park the car and I had signed in just minutes before, when the nurse called my name and I was shuffled off to the room down the hall and believe it or not the casts were just cut off without anyone ever looking at me twice. I hardly had time to prepare myself. It was mildly shocking to say the least. But if you have ever been in a fracture clinic you might know that the appointment only starts with this and there is more, much more to come.
I was sent back out into the waiting room with my arms as bare as they had ever been in the last seven weeks except for the metal pins sticking out of my flesh in all possible directions and the stench of the dead skin following me down the hall and the itchiness and all the hair and the tiny arms in front of me. I swear I had shrunk to half my size. I had never seen anything quite like it. I must admit that I was warned about the smell of the skin being unwrapped from the casts, so, I was prepared for that. I also suspected that there might be more hair then usual on the skin under the casts, but nothing quite prepared me for the gorilla look I sport these days. And then there was the dead layer of skin that kept peeling and peeling and peeling for the next week to follow. And the whole idea of being so unprotected scared the crap out of me. Really. I was too scared to even lower my wrists let alone keep them at my sides. I held them high like a torch, perhaps expecting some Olympic miracle to take place? Who knows? But it was a truly odd sensation. By the time I was called for an x-ray I had managed to peel some of the dead skin cells, but I had hardly moved from my torch like position. It was too frightening. It was too stiff. And the x-ray in itself was a whole test of patience, because they wanted me to bend my wrists out to have them flat on the table even though for more then six weeks I had been held in a forward flex position. What the hell? I was feeling so week by then that I almost passed out. However, the longer I live the more I realize that the human body can take a lot of abuse. They managed to put me in a flat hand on the table position regardless the pain and regardless of the twisted and weird positions my elbows and body had to endure.
By the time the x-ray was over I realized that my “torch” carrying was not just a mechanism built in to protect me from the fright of having my wrists exposed, but a little more then that. I was stiff. I was so stiff that I could not move either of my wrists a millimeter forward or a millimeter back. My fingers moved, but could not make a fist for the life of me. I could not get my palms to lie flat against my face. I could not even hold a coffee cup. It was such a shock. I never thought that it could be this bad after a few weeks of immobilization. I had no IDEA how bad it could be. I was scared. I was scared but I was not going to show it.
Minutes before I got called in to see Dr. Hall, Steve came into the lobby. I did have a wait, but not as long as the first time. Steve came with me to the same little room I had visited a few weeks before and we were again jammed with a few other patients waiting to see the good doctor for a little word, an explanation or some check-up or another. He was as charming as always, spending just enough time with each patient to make them feel important and good, but just short of giving you time to think about any questions or concerns that might arise from the chat. It’s sad, really. And I cannot blame the doctor, because I have now experienced on my own skin how jammed and overburdened our healthcare system can be at times. It’s not really the doc, but just the way it’s all set up.
Dr. Hall spent a few minutes with me. He was charming, as always. Happy with the way the surgery had gone, happy with the way I had healed, happy with my progress. Told me to stick to physiotherapy and moved on to the next patient. What I had coming next was the removal of my pins, which in fact was not a painful process, but rather one that made me sick to the deepest corners of my being. I was asked to lie down and then the metal pins that were in my wrists were removed by a typical, twist-push-n-pull technique of a dentist pulling a tooth. It was not pain, but rather the feeling of something being pulled out from the inside of me that made me sick. The pins were removed quickly and the holes were just covered with gauze, even though some had fair amount of bleeding, which looked frightening to my naked and untrained eye. But all was fine a few days later. And the best part was having an arm back that had no metal components.
But more on that later… The rest of the storey of the last ten days has not yet been edited. Please be patient. I will do my best amongst Physiotherapy and OT, Chiropractor and Acupuncture, Family doctor and Homeopath, Hospital and Clinic to keep you posted.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
not much longer
it's finally me. yes. i can type. with two fingers already. but i'm too lazy to try and do the 'capitals'. so, bare with me.over the last week i've been getting more and more emails asking me how i'm doing, so, i've decided it's time for a personal update. especially since my next appointment with my surgeon is tomorrow and i'm crossing my fingers (and my toes) that perhaps i might get my casts off tomorrow. hoping, hoping, hoping... for a new chapter.
yes. i'm tired of being totally dependent on others. i'm tired of sleeping with hard and heavy arms next to my face on my pillow. i'm tired of not being able to stroke my kids heads without being told "it's scratchy, mommy!" i cannot wait to take a shower on my own. or even soak in a tub and not get pins and needles in my arms that are being balanced on top of my head for most of the time. i'm sick of peeling skin and itchy forearms under the casts. i want to be able to wash my own face. i'm dying to cook and even washing dishes seems like something i would love to do. i cannot wait to do all those little things we all take for granted in life. the little every day things like pouring your own cup of coffee.
however, i have to admit that i have progressed immensly over the course of the month. if i started by drinking through a straw, then now i can lift a cup to my mouth. i needed to be fed in the beginning but now i can even feed the kids, if need be. i can use a public bathroom on my own, as long as i wear the right pair of pants. i can open a door, even if i need to twist the door knob. i type with two fingers not one. i brush my own teeth. i can put on 50% of my own clothes. and no more painkillers. no more waking up with sore arms. no more nightmares. no more swelling. oh. what a blessing.
i'm extremely lucky to have friends, amazing friends, who carried me through the hardest of times at the very beginning, right after the accident. and they have been there for me, for all of us all this time... i will forever feel greatful to each and every one of you! i do not have the words to express the feelings i have, because i just get this overwhelming sense... of love.
thank you!
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