2020: The Worst. And also my 5-Year Anniversary!

What better time than updating in 2020? Who knew it would be such a reflective year? 

With so much time stuck at home, it really took me all the way back to 2015 when I was homebound for almost 6 months because of my fracture. The only difference now is that I have two working arms and can wash my own hair! Otherwise, I don’t think much has changed arm-wise since my last update in 2017. In fact, I think my left arm actually is in better shape than my right arm.  

As a result of relying so much on my working arm during my injury, I’ve noticed that I sometimes feel stiffness in my thumb if I’m using my computer mouse too long, and I also find my right arm tends to wear out faster when doing exercises. So, my advice to those relying on your other body parts to do the heavy lifting when you’re injured is if you can get someone else to do it for you, let them! I think I was so keen on trying to do things for myself without any assistance that I ended up overworking the joints on my right side. 

Otherwise, my recovered left arm seems 98.9% fine. It’s not 100% because I’ve noticed that while I can lift up a 50lb dumbbell with it, little things like trying to balance a hardcover book with my entire hand will cause my thumb and forefinger to twitch. Must be a nerve thing?  

Looking back, I’m still reminded to be grateful for what I am physically capable of doing today and try not to take it for granted. Washing my own hair is still a mini luxury for me and I will relish it until the day all my hair withers away.

And I still haven’t been back treetop trekking and I’m not sure if I ever will. Odd and random thing happened is that I found out that the person who organized the treetop trekking excursion, where my right arm perished, tragically passed away last year - and on my birthday, no less. It’s a weird and humbling reminder that I should still push myself to conquer the things that scare me – safely, of course! 

Lastly, my apologies for not responding to people’s questions; I kind of tucked this blog away after full recovery and never really looked back. I also don’t know how much advice I can give as my experiences and your experiences are all unique in their own way. Regardless, I’m fairly certain that every one of you has found recovery or, to those reading, will eventually find it. I tend to be a perfectionist and I wanted so badly for my left arm to recover back to the way it was prior to the accident.  I worked hard during physical therapy to get it where it is now, but I also know that it’s not exactly the same. And I learned to live with that. I realized that nothing is ever really perfect as life just happens and we eventually accept the things we cannot change and learn to carry on (there’s an Oprah-ism in there somewhere). 

Still wishing you all the best! It will get better.

Two year anniversary!

Well, not too much of an update.  My left arm feels pretty normal.  The only time I feel something’s off is when I’m lifting weights and there seems to be an imbalance in strength.  I also occasionally hear clicks in my left arm while moving it, which I understand is scar tissue.  But, I’m told that over time this will all heal.

Being naturally right-handed, more so when I was injured, I also have to remind myself to use my left arm more often when doing simple tasks like grabbing a mug from the cupboard or opening a jar.

Other than that there’s really not much else to say.  I had the opportunity to go treetop trekking again this month and a part of me wanted to go so I could say that I conquered it and have a happy ending to gloat about (or worse, break something else!).   But, ultimately I chose not to go because I recall it not being an enjoyable experience for me.  At the risk of sounding like a negative Nelly, I personally didn’t find it fun and still don’t think it was entirely safe (despite all the harnesses and their promises).  It’s still a scary and painful experience if you slip and fall while on an obstacle course and trying to get back up is difficult.

The only thing I gained from treetop trekking was that it made me want to work on my upper strength more because I didn’t like the feeling of struggling while trying to support my own weight.

Despite the long road and painful memories, I’m still satisfied with my decision to heal naturally.

Remembering to be grateful for what I have and what I’m physically able to do helps ground me.  If I’m ever feeling stressed or down about something, I remind myself of those times when I wasn’t able to change positions when I slept, or even wash my own hair, and then my mood changes.

Us, broken-arm folk, are part of an exclusive club and have a unique experience that provides us with better perspective.

Wishing the best of luck to those on this journey!

1 Year Update ~ Got ‘til it’s gone

It’s been awhile since my last update.  What can I say, life gets busy once you’re no longer one-armed and homebound.   Since my last update, I completed physical therapy three months ago and most of my life has returned back to normal.

For physio, for one month I attended physio 2-3x a week and focused mostly on building up my deltoid muscles and straightening my arm.  The latter hurt.  A lot.  But, I have a high pain threshold and I was determined to get my arm straight.  I told my physiotherapist to do her worst.  And she did.  But, what really helped with my recovery was being consistent with my exercises at home.  I used an exercise band and light weights to strengthen and lengthen my arm.  Every. Single. Day.

Because I was in a cast for so long, my physiotherapist wasn’t confident that I would be able to fully straighten my arm again.  She had never seen such a stiff arm before.  But I proved her wrong and after two months I got my arm back…well, most of it.

There it is, my very last x-ray.

Granted, it is not 100% straight, you’ll notice that the bone is still healing and at an angle.  But, hopefully within a year from now it will be back to normal.  What will help with this is continuing to exercise and do beneficial activities like yoga and push-ups that help lengthen and straighten my arm.

It’s also not 100 because if I lean on my elbow, it feels slightly out of place and if I lift weights and attempt tricep exercises, I feel pressure and pain.  So I try to take it easy and use my judgement.  Otherwise, I’m happy and grateful now.   Like with any horrible injury, you get a lot of time to think and reflect during your recovery.   And while I watched my life pass me by, I gained weight, missed out on special events, and realized who my true friends were.  I also lost some income and had to rely on others to care for me.  That was probably the hardest part.

But throughout all the hardship, I knew that this would pass and I would eventually get my life back.  If you followed my blog, you’ll know that it took a long time to get to this point.  Choosing to heal naturally and deciding to stick with that decision after a setback brought on a lot of uncertainty and stress.  It truly was a not so "humerus" journey.  But, I’m glad I stuck with it.  Kudos to me dammit!

I hate to be cliché and corny…but it’s my blog so I don’t care.  If I learned anything from this experience it’s the meaning of being grateful.  Being unable to partake in simple everyday luxuries like sleeping, showering and driving really put my life into perspective. Even smaller independent tasks like being able to slice an apple, carrying something heavy, getting dressed, or even just styling one’s hair made me grateful that I had the assistance of two arms and hands to do so.  Having two arms is awesome!  Even able to exercise properly with two arms feels great again.  Swimming, pull ups, barbells: no more excuses!  (I can’t believe I just said that.)

If you are able-bodied and have working limbs – use them!  You’re blessed and don’t even know it.

Week 24 ~ FINALLY! "It has happened to me right in front of my face. My feelings can't describe it." ~ Cece Peniston

It’s been about 6 weeks since my last check-in and while my x-ray still looks about the same as Week 18, but bone is growing, I’m finally arms-free!  No more brace and sling to wear.

Such a relief.  There’s no other feeling like it.  I couldn’t believe how functional and normal my left arm felt when working with the hospital’s physiotherapist, perhaps because of how long I was in a sling and brace for.

But, now the work begins…

My arm isn’t completely straight and is bent at the elbow and looks weird while walking.  My shoulder is really stiff when bringing it upwards or trying to rotate it.  My exercises consist of pendulum swings, shoulder external rotations, elbow flexion/extensions, and forearm pronations.  

Four times a day.  I try to do more.  The fear of my arm never being straight again motivates me.

But, it’s amazing how my life has quickly returned to normal.  I forgot how useful having an extra arm is.  As a one-armed man, what I struggled most with was dressing, cutting food, shoe lace tying, and dish washing, but it’s all second nature now with two working arms.

I can also drive myself.  Yeah independence!

It all feels strange, yet familiar.  Like a part of me was on extended vacation.

Until the next update, I’ll be…

Week 18 ~ Love takes time…so does bone healing

Well, here we are 18 weeks later and still with broken arm.

Not much has changed since my last x-ray three weeks ago:

A bit more callus has shown, but we need it to fill in more.  My ortho is optimistic that when I next see him in 5 weeks, that I can start physio.  We’ll see...

I’m out of the cast finally…and I hope it does not return from the dead again.

I’m trying to be extra careful with my arm while in a brace, as well as out of it when I take my showers (yes, I can take showers again – refer to Week 7 blog entry for current mood).

But, it’s sooo hard.  There have been times where I feel like I have moved my arm too much and have that sinking feeling that something is wrong and I have misaligned my broken bones.  And 5 weeks is a long time to wait until my next x-ray.  Stressful, but I have been praying every night for my arm to heal.  Well, almost every night…if I remember to.

Though, the notion of ruining this healing progress would be quite embarrassing.  To stumble and make it this far, only to stumble again…Please Lord do not play tricks on me again.  Pleaaase!

I also go back to work in 3 weeks, which should be interesting as a one-armed man.  I’ll have modified duties, but I’m unsure how this will all work out since there really isn’t much that I can physically do.   

(I don't work in construction btw.)

I think most frustrating is that I still can’t drive.  I could try, but most of my turn signals are on the left side of my steering wheel.  But, having to rely completely on others to take me places and now with work is slightly depressing.

In my case…

Week 15 ~ The comeback

This is my latest x-ray….

So now it looks like I’m back on track and won’t require surgery….but that’s what we said back in September.

Let’s not jinx it.  I still have a gap between my bones so there’s still potential for my healing to fall apart.  The doctor actually gave me the option to have a brace put on, but remembering what happened last time…

I didn’t want to take any chances and stuck with the cast.  So that means another three weeks in a cast, for a total of six weeks since I last wore the brace.  Add another six weeks from the beginning and that makes it 12 weeks wearing a cast. That must be a new record somewhere. 

I’ll say that I’ve been so against surgery because it would make me feel like the past 15 weeks have been wasted…and I also don’t feel like getting cut up and sliced open.

Thankfully the casts I’ve been getting have gotten lighter and skinnier each visit.  This time the technician found a way to keep my cast on without taping it to me, though the trade-off is that it is quite snug around my arm.  I have not run into this issue of encased itchiness yet.  

Because it has been so long without movement, I did worry about muscle atrophy happening, but the ortho said the physical therapist would take care of that.

Winter is now here, which means putting on more clothes, which to those of who are one-armed means even more time spent dressing.  When I put jackets on I tend to wear them unzipped and let my broken arm hang out for others to see. 

Like my friend Bono here:

But I guess that’s going to have to change.  As it gets colder I’ll have to adopt the poofy/bursting chest look:

Regardless, I’m going to be thankful and grateful in the meantime. 

Week 12 ~ Back to Square One (2.0)

Oh how life can be so cruel.  I dreaded writing this post.  All the fears I had at the beginning of this journey seemed to have come true.

Here’s my latest x-ray:

 It’s been 12 weeks (equivalent to 3 months) since my accident and I’m still not fully healed. 

The ortho has recommended surgery, but I had to convince him that I wanted some more time to heal.  I’m giving myself three more weeks to see some significant healing or else I’m going the surgery route.

I’m so disappointed by this.  I can’t really explain all the fluctuations in my healing and shifting of my bones in the last three months.  So many thoughts run though my head…(i.e. What if I had stayed in my cast longer?,  What if I had slept more on my back?)  I was given a new cast and rolls of cotton to place in between my arm and chest to help elevate the bones come closer together.  This was the same position I was in on day one.  It’s like the past 3 months never happened.

It was suggested I try a bone stimulator machine, but my insurance doesn’t cover it and it is way too expensive and there’s no guarantee that it will help.  I truly hope that elevating my arm will assist in a significant way considering this was the position I was placed in during the six-week mark, which resulted in good bone alignment.  

This sucks.

Strangers are friendly

Recently, I was sitting at a large handicap table at McDonalds waiting for my food when someone touched my shoulder from behind saying, “Excuse me...”  I turned around thinking to myself that another disabled person wanted to battle me for this table.

Instead I was greeted by an elderly lady asking me about my arm.  She was very sweet and concerned about me.  Her equally friendly and curious husband joined us and while explaining myself, she began touching and stroking my broken arm.  You get a lot of attention and stares when you wear a sling and cast in public.  Some strangers will ask you how you broke it and some apparently will be bolder.

They were very sweet, however my first thought afterwards was, “So, that’s how people get their wallets stolen.”

Week 9 ~ Something happened on the way to heaven

Guess what.  I’m back in a cast.  Yep, after seeing the ortho, he looked at my x-ray and asked how long has it been since the accident.  “9 weeks,” I said.  “9 weeks or 9 days?” he replied.  

 

He didn’t tell me what was wrong (and inside, I really didn’t want to know).  He did say it was healing, but the brace was too short and my elbow needed more protection.  Therefore, I had to go back in a cast…

After writing the last few posts and being so happy, I’m now back to being entombed.  Being back in a cast also means more tape drama and no more showers.  But, the cast technician was nice enough (after hearing my moaning and groaning) to make the cast with lighter material by combining it with fibreglass material and not putting as much tape as he normally would (though as expected, that tape wore out three days later).

I take sponge baths now.  But I look forward to showers again one day soon.

Oh well.  What can you do? Frustrating? Yes.  But, I have to be optimistic that the progress I saw with my arm those last few days meant something and this is a minor setback.

Week 8 ~ Little miracles happen everyday…or in my case, waiting 57 days

I can lift my arm.  Well, kinda.  This morning I noticed while brushing my teeth in a sling that I could lift my arm without any support.  It was a miracle!  Then I took a seat and I couldn’t do it anymore.  God pulled a prank on me.

It was the day I’d been anxiously waiting for.  Since my accident I’ve pondered what raising my arm would feel like and how it would happen.  Would I just suddenly wake up one morning and realize it?  (Which you could argue sorta did happen.)  It’s a strange and frustrating feeling when you no longer have control of one of your limbs.  You can try with all your might, stare at it, yell at it, but it just won’t move.      

But, later in the day I realized that my little miracle did last.  Like a magic act, it takes a lot of concentration and effort, but I can raise my arm.  It feels very foreign and eerie when doing so as I can hear and feel bones and muscles moving.  But, it’s great progress and reassures me that I am healing as I have been googling about humerus fractures and non-unions recently.  We all heal differently, right?  Now, I’m just unsure how much I should push it.  Do I try and lift my arm whenever I can?  Will that strengthen it?  Or will it get better on its own and require less effort as time goes on?