The saga of the broken Elbow continues . . .

It’s been a long haul. Nearly nine months since I very un-gracefully changed my life in the blink of an eye!

Are you sick of hearing about it? I’m sure sick of talking about it, but it seems to want to consume my life right now, so I figured a new update was in order.

Three weeks in a cast, two 6-week rounds of physical therapy, countless hours of “occupational therapy” trying to act as normal as possible, and I’m still not where I should be. Even if I wanted to accept that it’s as good as it’s gonna get, it’s really not.

And for the icing on the cake, I developed an overuse injury in my opposite wrist mid-January, so for four of those months, BOTH arms have been disabled. And still, I can say to myself: “It could be worse. My friend, Pat Sloan, broke both of her wrists at the same time!” At least I can still partially use both of my arms.

But Doc is not happy with my progress, and keeps giving me the wrinkly-brow look, and finally sent me to a specialist. So today I saw a Sports Medicine hand & elbow specialist. You know, because I’m such an athlete — NOT!

For my elbow, he’s not completely happy with the last x-ray. He thinks it’s a tad bit out of alignment, meaning the ball isn’t quite spinning in the socket at the right point, and there’s a little chunk of bone hanging off one side that never reattached (which I was told about from the beginning — they told me there were two chunks that might not reattach, so this wasn’t a real surprise).

What was a surprise is that while I thought the fracture only went vertically up my arm (aside from the two random chunks), it actually went in several different directions, so I’m being referred even further to an Elbow Surgeon to see what he thinks my options are from this point.

Hopefully not surgery, but if that’s what it takes, my daughters will insist that I go for it. They claim I’m too young to settle for a Deformed Arm the rest of my life. I tried to convince them that I could probably deal with it for the 20-25 years I have left (just for kicks), which brought on a tirade from both of them that made me proud, complete with lots of eye rolling and hissing sounds — I’ve raised them right! And it IS my turn to give back — haha! Isn’t that what parents are for?

Evidently, there are lots of broken elbows in our area, because the elbow surgeon is booked up until the end of June, so until then, I just hang out with my deformed arm and wait. I can do that.

As for the wrist, I got a steroid injection in the affected tendon area, and got fitted with my very own custom removable cast, complete with padding in all the right places. I even got to choose my own colors! The key word here is “removable” — I don’t have to wear it at night — whew! And I can take it off to shower and do dishes, which relieves a lot of frustration right from the start.

So . . . I’m in a cast for two more weeks, and then I can start slowly weaning myself out of it. Let’s hope and pray that the injection works, because if it doesn’t, my only other option is surgery, and altho it’s a minor procedure, it’s one I’d rather not go through.

Meanwhile, I’m still quilting as much as I can. Obviously, I’m a lot slower than I was pre-accident, and back then, I always thought I was too slow, so my mind is having to wrap itself around a still-messed-up schedule and I’m still trying to adjust to my new pace — I’m used to being super busy and getting so much done, and now I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel, working away and getting very little done. I’m guessing this could be a big contributing factor to my current slump.

Anyway, I’m trying to keep a good attitude about it all, since it just takes time and I’m doing all I can do — I have to be patient. Why is that so hard??

I promise my next post won’t be so down-in-the-dumps! I should have some stuff to show you that I’ve been working on. I’m giving myself some grace over the weekend, praying that my slump is over by Monday, and that I’m back in the saddle being my normal happy productive self. Thanks for visiting!

And thanks to all of you who have regularly checked on me, asked about my progress, sent up prayers, and offered cheer and good vibes for the last nine months — I appreciate you more than you know!