I'm free, I'm free! I have cast off the fiberglass shackles of my arm's bondage!
Yes, my cast came off yesterday as scheduled, and the doctor was so pleased with how well it's healed up that I don't even have to wear a splint or brace like I was supposed to! I have an ace bandage to wrap it up in if I'm going to do something active, but that's it. And I have no danger of future arthritis from this, and I'm really thinking it bodes pretty well against me getting osteoporosis in the future. I mean, if I'm almost 30 and healed up almost as quickly as a teen would have done, these must be some good strong calcium-laden bones I have!
But oh, it feels so weird to have it off. I was really surprised to discover how weak my arm has become. I had improved so much in strength with the cast on that I guess I was thinking the difficulties I was still having were due to how difficult it is to grip anything with a fiberglass band across my palm! But no, my arm is very weak-- lifting a full glass is difficult, and it was even hard to squeeze the toothpaste tube! How embarrassing.
My wrist's range of motion deteriorated, of course. (Though the doctor was impressed with how much ROM I managed to keep in spite of being immobilized for that long.) I have some wrist and arm stretchy exercises I'm supposed to do to bring everything back to normal. And believe me, I'm going to do them!
The first thing they did after they got the cast off-- even before doing a follow up x-ray-- was let me wash my arm! Ahhhh. :-) But my skin integrity also deteriorated while it was all covered up. It looks like I have a rash. And I've been cautioned not to scratch too much, because I could bleed very easily. The skin is amazingly sensitive at the moment. It's calmed down some from yesterday, but it's still so very weird. Sometimes it feels good, like when I was out in the rain yesterday, but sometimes it's just too much!
However, I took a LONG bubble bath last night. I feel 100% clean for the first time in 6 weeks! And I washed my hair with both hands! And I was able to wash my left elbow! There was all this nasty dirt and dead skin coming off the formerly broken arm. It felt SO GOOD!
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4 comments:
Oh hooray! I'm so glad the cast is finally off and you are able to feel the air on your skin once again. I know the feeling of finally being able to wash the whole arm without worry about getting anything wet.....very happy for you, dear friend!!
Hey, you have been MIA for a while now....you okay?
hurray! so that means wyou can uh... uh... do things like push-ups and stuff. :)
Ugh, I don't do pushups! I've lost 6 pounds by working out at the campus gym, though. ;-)
I'm okay, Martie. I've just been busy, but not with anything worth blogging about! Thank you for asking.
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