Week 1 review

I wanted to write a little review of my first week after surgery. Really, there's not too much to write about because there just a lot of napping and sleeping.

And not just the cats. I slept a lot, and I was really surprised at how much surgery wiped me out. The first day I left the house was Wednesday. I was out for about 2 hours and only went to get my hair done and stop by the office, but I came home and had to go to sleep immediately. By Saturday I ventured out for a walk to Walgreens 1/2 mile away. Again, complete exhaustion and nap once I got home. It's getting better, but I'm still not able to make it through a whole day at work yet, so I'm not even really thinking about training at this point.

I think the most awesome thing about last week was how much support I got from family and friends. I didn't know I had so many awesome friends! I don't want risk leaving anyone out so I don't want to name names, but to give you some examples of my friends' awesomeness, I had people driving me around (because I couldn't drive), bringing me dinner, baking me cookies, sending me flowers, and coming over to clean out the cat box and help me tie back my hair.

Which brings me to the inconveniences of having a broken arm. For me I think the biggest one is not being able to tie back my hair. I have naturally curly (more like frizzy) hair. It takes a lot of product and time with the blow dryer and flat iron for me not to look like a crazy cat lady. At this point hats are not even containing the mess on top of my head. I have an appointment with Rick today for disaster control.

I've had to be creative too with some other things like opening jars. I feel like some kind of monkey, which is also what I look like when I shave my right arm pit. Go ahead and try shaving your right arm pit with your right arm. I think I've got a mohawk going on under there now, but I'm doing the best I can. Makes me really appreciate the challenges that some of my Paralympic friends face every day.
On Monday, the week after surgery I went to ortho to get the cast off and get fitted with a new cast. Looks pretty gross still. I am going to have an awesome scar.

Instead of getting a hard cast they fitted me with "robo-arm." It's just a brace with a movable joint. So far I like the name robo-arm the best, but others have named it "bionic arm", "star wars arm", and "go, go, gadget arm". I will be taking a poll of best names to appropriately name my new best friend of the next 6 weeks.

So with robo-arm, the doc wants me moving it already and has me starting PT already which is great. The brace is so much better than a hard cast because I can take it off and shower and move my hand around. I can even type with both hands. He's got me on a pretty good range of motion in it too. Not that I have any strength to move my arm but it's still so much better than having it in a hard cast.

So that was pretty much week 1. Thanks for stopping by, and stay classy.