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.