The big news is I am allowed to drive now!! I have my work car back, and feel this was a huge milestone to feeling "normal" again - I no longer have to rely on others to get me from place to place.
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| xray at 9 weeks |
I wasn't easy to do though - the physio at the hospital said his hands were tied, that it was the surgeons decision. When I tried to get an earlier fracture clinic appt, they said "try your GP". So I went to see my friendly GP, who was very obliging, did a quick examination, and wrote me the clearance letter on the spot. He also sent me off for an xray (to be sure) which is included here. An interesting point here - my GP was the first Dr to actually "touch" my arm since the injury. I didn't actually realize this until after he had done the hands on exam!!!!
The docs at the hospital always examined me from their chair! (looking into the computer screen/xray)I have started seeing a private physio, who once again, only has me doing "active assisted" exercises, because he thinks my x ray still looks several weeks away from "load bearing". The problem is - even with these "baby stretches" my shoulder is playing up badly. I can't seem to increase my range of shoulder movement without nasty catching "ligament" type pain in the front of my shoulder.
As for my fracture - it feels great, I now use my arm almost normally, limited only when it requires some strength. I can go about my day to day life for hours before I remember I even have a bad arm. I stopped wearing the brace altogether about 10 days ago because my fracture site feels very secure and doesn't hurt at all!
One sad thing though, I still have not had a complete nights sleep since my accident, I can only lie on my R side and back (too much shoulder pain for the L side). On my back get woken by back ache, so I roll over and then I wake up with TERRIBLE numbness in my L arm!! Oh well, at least the waking hours are virtually pain free.
So, 10 weeks on, and life is pretty well back to normal. Some people might not bother moving on from here, but as I said to my physio at the first visit, my goal for recovery is "to be able to lift a hay bale again" so I am going to have to work on that one!!
