Down The Road, Not Across The Street · 10:14am March 20th
Down The Road, Not Across The Street
Across the street is for attention. Down the road is when you mean it.
My wrist, after it broke, healed wrong. I was told it was only 10 degrees off normal; it turned out to be 50 degrees abnormal. As my surgeon put it "No wonder you were in pain!"
The normal radius cap in the wrist is about 11 degrees supine, or tilted down towards the wrist. My radius cap had ended up 50 degrees pronate, or bent backwards over the top, causing a slight disfigurement and much discomfort, lack of motion, and swelling.
I am back from having my sutures removed, and already things are vastly better. My fingers are far more mobile, I can actually make a fist, more or less, and I have some small part of my hyperflexability back, and it is only 14 days since my surgery. I feel positive about the outcome.
Right now, my radius is being held together with a metal plate and eight screws, all titanium. The bone does not entirely meet - there is a 45 degree 'pac-man' pie wedge out of the bone that must - over the next eight months - fill in and become new bone.
Currently, under my skin, is a soft 'callus' made of a large blood clot within which fibers of cartilage are growing through, to form a net. Blood vessels are growing like roots through the clot, to connect both sides of the gap that is the missing wedge of bone. It is all soft and squishy, and only the metal plate keeps it in place. I can put no weight on it at all, nor carry anything, nor open bottles. I can use a fork or hashi, I can type - as you can see - and I can paint miniatures - at least as long as I can stand it, anyway.
After three months, osteoblasts, bone cells, will start climbing the cartilage scaffold like little ameboid spiders, and they will find places to settle down. They will create a coral reef inside the thick, gooey ocean of my blood clot. That, over the course of eight months, will become bone, and fill in the large gap. Then, I will be healed.
In the mean time, there are regular exercises - gentle ones - to do, to regain my range of motion and to break up any forming scar tissue.
Having the sutures out actually felt good - as they slipped out, the skin felt happier. Interesting, that.
I still wear a brace, which I can remove at will. I am no longer in a cast. I just have to remember to never put any weight on my wrist for the next many months. But, I am now at 2 percent supination, which is vastly better. I have hope of getting most of my function entirely back, in time, and I am healing very rapidly.
I am feeling good about this!
So glad that you are on the road to happy recovery. The science of how much has to happen in fine detail to repair such an injury is fascinating.
Seeing this improvement in your life, has given me what I need to bounce back from all the mishaps I've been slogging through. My longtime doctor will no longer see me, as they have capped a limit on the patients they will allow at their office, and there's a serious lack of Primacy Care Physicians in my county that will see new patients, especially if you're not very well-to-do or extremely poor, like living out of a SUV poor. And I have some important stuff, like Blood Clot prescriptions and Insulin, that I will run out of, if not taken care of.
My boss cut my hours down dramatically, I was living off all the overtime I was working, and now I am gonna be living that closer to the bone, it especially shocks me that he gave a good chunk of my hours to a new employee, who only complains that the added hours means less time he'll have to spend with his girlfriend.
And finally getting over $1500 hacked from my Bank Account, and my Bank initially returning the money, only to immediately take it back, claiming I need to give solid evidence of money being unlawfully siphoned from my account. As if I was performing some sort of scam by pretending hack into my own Bank Account.
Awesome! I'm rooting for your osteoblasts!
You unicorns, always bragging about your telekinesis.
This is good to hear.
Something something, molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we...
Very glad to hear you're on the mend. Here's hoping the rebuild goes smoothly.
Honestly, I'd expect better from modern medicine even without surgery (unless there's bunch of fragments).
I'm glad you're feeling better already. Hope the rest of the recovery goes smoothly.
Most excellent, Chat. So glad to hear it's coming along and healing. Getting old sucks... :x
Dope to see you're healing up! Wishin' you the best 🙏🏼
Wery glad to 'hear' things are better for you! I once was at Black Sea beach and wave pushed me back so I overstretched one finger in wrong direction. Nothing broke, but it was remaining about itself for many months!
Still be careful with even typing - I think wrong angle between hands and keyboard can be quite painful after long time ...
Found O'Neill "High Frontier" in zlibrary and read it. Interesting way to Trojan Horse big human presence in Space, but .. ten! millions! tons! of regolith! processed over few years (and Go Real Big Real Fast was mostly due to financial reason ...) apparently was a bit too much for both NASA and private investors. Bunch of volumes on subject were produced, and I guess I admire some 50 years long persistance. But without externalizing costs real hard capitalism (esp. this later stage of it) simply can't work, even using exponent for monetary growth! But at least I learned that there was another book "2081" I was not aware about ...
Hurray! 🎉
I am so glad to hear this for you. I hope you have a full and speedy recovery.
I'm so very happy to hear you're better!
rejoice, the flesh heals.
Best wishes!
Glad you're doing better. :)