Post Surgery Update

Hi Everyone!

(Warning! There is a picture below of my stitches. It's kinda gross.....)

Sorry for the delay in posting. My hand/wrist is still very painful so this update will probably be brief.
I went in for surgery at 5:00PM on March 16th, a full week after my graceful fall on the ice. The surgery went well but took longer than expected. The dr talked to Jerry after and said instead of the 1 piece of bone that they thought they needed a titanium plate and screws for, it was 5 or 6 pieces and like putting a puzzle together. Apparently when I break a bone, I do it good! They had to keep me in recovery longer than expected too because they couldn't get my pain under control. I think she added pain meds to my IV about 10 times. It wasn't helping at all! I was finally brought to a room and told the nurse I needed to go to the bathroom. She helped me sit up with the warning that I might get sick from so much medicine. I felt awful but nothing came up so after a bit I was able to go to the bathroom. I tried calling Jerry's cell phone and just kept getting a busy signal. The nurse went looking for him. The place we had left him closed at 8:00 PM and it was just after 9. She had him paged, nothing. I tried Amber's cell phone and got a busy signal there too. While the nurse went to call security (we were getting worried! and thought maybe he fell asleep in a waiting room and didn't hear the page) it dawned on me that the cell phone would be long distance from Madison. The nurse came back and got me a calling card. I called Amy's house to see if she had heard from her dad. She said he was home! They had gotten wires crossed somehow and the message of me staying in recovery longer had been turned around to me having to stay the night! While I was on the phone with her she called Jerry with her cell phone. They came up to get me but didn't get there till midnight. As they were walking in,my pain meds were wearing off big time! I had to have Jerry go back to the car where (luckly) I had put my other pain meds in the glove compartment earlier in the day. The nurses on duty didn't have any orders allowing them to give me any because I was supposed to be home by then! I finally made it home about 1:00AM. I walked in the house and puked in the bucket the nurse had given me. :op
Here's the lovely club I came home with:

The week was spent sitting on the couch in my pjs and sleeping. We had a couple of really nice days that I couldn't enjoy.:o( I had my first therapy appt on that following Thursday. They just checked it and washed it with sterile water. I was supposed to get the stitches out today (Thursday) but it was healing so fast that they took them out on Tuesday. I had 11 stitches. It really hurt to get them out! I was actually sweating! Here's what the stitches looked like:

We also asked about the plate put in. She showed us this one and said it would be similar. The color depended on the size.

The therapy is painful too. The muscles and tendons are still all tightened up so things don't want to move too much. I also still have fluid swelling. I will need therapy twice a week for 6-8 weeks. The dr put April 23 for the date on Jerry's FMLA papers. He figures I will need help until then. I'm not sure Jerry will have to be off till then but it's nice to know he can if he needs to. He has about 500 hours of sick leave saved up so at least he will get some pay.
Today when I went to therapy Ihad to have x-rays done. They let Jerry take a pic with his cell phone. I couldn't believe how big the plate is! And there are 9 screws!! No wonder this has been so painful! Yikes! It must have been a mess!


Well, I better wrap this up. It is way longer than I intended. Hopefully I will be able to have a stitching update before too long. Hopefully.......

Thanks to everyone that sent cards & well wishes. They were very much appreciated. :o)

Hugs, Elaine

This and That

Hello Everyone!

I'm going to attempt a blog update with my left hand. We'll see how it goes. :op

First, an update on my broken wrist. Apparently it's a worse break than first thought. Well, worse than they told me anyway. I'm not sure if they knew at the ER or not. On Thursday I had to go to the Hand Clinic in Madison. I thought I was going for a cast. They looked at the before & after x-rays and said I had a 'Closed Fracture of Distal End of Radius'. There is a piece of bone that is completely out so even when they put it back it can move. Because of that it would probably never heal right. So I go into surgery at 5:00 PM on Monday to have a metal piece and screws put in to hold the bone in place. They said that in the before x-ray the bone was very, VERY displaced. No wonder I was in so much pain!! (I told Jerry on the way to the hospital that I would rather be in labor! I think I have a pretty high pain tolerance since I had 3 kids with no epidurals! This was crazy pain)So instead of a cast I came home with this:
Until yesterday my hand was still really swollen. My knuckles didn't have any lines! They were smooth. Too weird looking! If I would have opted not to have surgery I would have had a cast for 8 weeks but probably would have kept having trouble. And they said probably arthritis in my wrist in a few years. With the surgery I will already have a therapy session on the following Friday! And the stitches will come out the following Thursday. In about 2 weeks I should be almost back to normal. Yeah! The surgery is out-patient at St. Mary's hospital in Madison. The only other time I was there was almost 23 years ago when Josh was born! I'm scheduled to go home that night but they said if it gets to be too late I will stay overnight. Hopefully I get to come home.

Obviously the thing I have missed most is my stitching. I look at it sitting there saying "Pick me up!". Home of a Needleworker was soooo close to being finished! All I have left is the top & bottom border and the 'ker' in needleworker.

Before this happened I had several small finishes that I nerer posted. I finished this just the day before I think.

It's Love is All You Need by Pine Mountain Designs. The chart was PIFd to me from Kathie. Now I will send it on to Jana.
Almost a month ago I finished the 3 small PIFs that I needed to send to Marion in Canada, Dawn in Texas and Sandra in Venezula. I have heard from Dawn and Marion that they received but I'm not sure if Sandra has received hers yet. Here is what I sent. I'm not sure who got which one. I put them in bubble envelopes and then addressed them.



I did do a few things beside stitching too. :o) My most recent card for my Card Connections Yahoo group was one of my favorite cards. The theme was 'lighthouse'. This is the one I made:


I also made some flannel burp cloths for a baby shower. This is the first time I tried these. They are so soft & have cute designs! They were for Amy's best friend Jessica. (they've been friends since they were 5) We always used prefolded cloth diapers for burp cloths but they are kinda scarce in the stores these days. Hopefully the flannel ones work well for them. I made 9 of them. I also gave her a pink bath towel. Obviously she's having a girl. :o) Here are the burp cloths:


Last month we went to watch Little Louie race his car in the Pinewood Derby for cub scouts. There were too many people around to get a good pic of the actual race. I did take a pic of the results screen and Louie came in 2nd in this heat. :o)

Here's a pic of Louie with his car and also a group photo. Louie is at the bottom right in the group.



I'll leave you with another strange & funny story from our crazy household. One day last month Jerry turned the tv down and looked like he was listening for something. I asked him about it and he said "didn't you hear that?" I didn't hear anything and we went back to watching our show. The next day he heard something again and went to open the basement door. He closed it. He opened it and then closed it. He came back in the living room and said "we have a bird in the basement". I was like "what? how do you know?" He said when he opened the door it was sitting on the top step looking at him! He wasn't sure he actually saw what he thought he saw so he looked again. :o) So Jerry & Josh headed to the basement with a big bucket and fishing net. He took the rubber net instead of the string one because there was less chance the bird would get tangled up. I listened to them for a few minutes and then decided how silly it was of me to send Laurel & Hardy to do a job that clearly called for the 3 Stooges. So off I went to the basement to show my men how to catch a bird. :o) A few minutes later we were setting him (her?) free outside. First I had to get a pic for my blog. :op

We still haven't figured out how the bird got in the basement. The basement windows don't open. The kitchen door to the breezeway has to be closed to open the basement door so even if it did come in that door unnoticed, it had to wait for the basement door to be opened. I'm pretty sure we would have seen it flying around the house. It's a mystery....... It was pretty funny trying to catch it though. :o)

OK, that's all I have for now. I'll try to post Tuesday or Wednesday about how the surgery went. It's supposed to be almost 60 tomorrow and in the 60s early next week. Yeah! I have the window on the front door open right now so it must be pretty nice out today too.

Hugs to Everyone. This is a long blog post so if you made it this far, thanks!
Elaine

OUCH!

I might be missing for a while. I'm typing this with my left hand (I'm right-handed), because this morning when I was walking Emma from the car to the school I slipped on some ice and broke the lower bone in my arm at the wrist. I will give more details after it quits hurting so much. They said they propably can't cast it till about Thursday. :o( The swelling has to go down first.

The worst part? I can't stitch!! The best part? I can't do dishes or laundry. :o)

Ok, major pain here. Jerry went to get my pain meds.

I'll update as soon as I can.

Hugs, Elaine