adults shouldn't rollerblade, take it from me!

Today marks 6 months, to the day, of my open reduction internal fixation on a left distal radius fracture. I learned a lot over the course of that injury, namely that that complicated medical sounding jargon in my previous sentence really just means "you were really fucking dumb and went rollerblading and were going too fast when a dog jumped in front of you as you were speeding down a hill, so you fell and managed to land your entire body's weight on your left wrist and because you have shitty luck, it didn't heal properly so some doctor and his "students" had to go in and put a 4-inch plate and 7 screws in it, causing intense pain and an inability to strenuously exercise for 3 months". BUT...

Since I've actually managed to recover far more than I expected to, or was expected to, in my first six months, I'm putting up my disgusting series of photos of the break, with no shame about my self-congratulatory air. I would say that I'm at about 85% of full use of my wrist, and there are very few things that I find limiting. I can lift as much weight as I was lifting pre-accident, and while I can only do 20 pushups instead of 50, that's not bad considering I've only been able to do them for the last two months or so.... I was told it would take a full year to hit 95-100%, so I feel pretty confident that I will get there! My physical therapist, whom I saw for 6 weeks after my cast came off, told me that if all her patients worked as hard as I did as fast as I did, she'd be out of a job! :) I won't let my ego take control of this post TOO much, but I will say that I firmly believe the reason I recovered so quickly was because a) I was in decent shape beforehand, and continued to force myself to exercise in whatever capacity I could, even if that meant riding the old ladies' reclining stationary bike with my sling on at the gym for 30 mins and b) because I did ALL the physical therapy I was told to do, no matter the amount of pain I felt or the annoying amount of time it took every day and c) Percoset. While of course I know injuries need recovery time, I think coddling them is probably the dumbest thing we can do to them. Observe all the rules while it's in a cast, and don't try to come back too soon, but when you're cleared to go, GO! I purposefully try to open all doors with my left hand (something I couldn't do 4 months ago) and while my wrist is literally screaming in pain after 10 pushups, I force myself to do as many more as I can.

Now, for the pictures.

I call this photo, "the calm before the storm". Look how carefree and happy I am. Oh, how little I know about today's fun Father's Day activities... This will be the last time I'll be smiling without drugs for a while...
"Take a picture, let's send it to Damon so he sees all the fun he's missing!"




"I'm sure it's just sprained... I'm just a baby, I cry a lot."
June 19th, 2011.

My first orthopedist, Dr. Lance Barlas, was awesome for a zillion reasons, not the least of which was that his office (wisely) stocked hot pink casting material. Also, who knew casts are no longer plaster, but fiberglass???? I guess you learn something new every injury....June 20, 2011.

So, of course I bedazzled my pink cast with the help of my best friend Macy:


Unfortunately, now comes the time in my story where the high of the hot pink sparkly cast came crashing down when I was informed that 10 days post breakage, my wrist had slipped out of place and would now require invasive surgery. I'll spare you the majority of the details, but it took another 7 days and 14 hours of standing in lines at Valley Medical Center in Santa Clara (shout out to my VMC homies!) to get my surgery scheduled and paid for. Here's me heading in to surgery, still believing all the nonsense they'd told me about "discomfort" and "grogginess" "for a few days or a couple weeks". What they meant was "unending sledgehammer-like pain", "inability to sleep for more than 4 hours for the next month without intense pain and/or having to take more percoset" and "you will probably throw up on yourself several times in the next couple days as your anesthesia wears off".
July 7th, 2011!


Now, here's where things get a little gross with a capital G. A week after my surgery, which I spent doped up lying on my mom's couch watching episodes of Criminal Minds and Say Yes To The Dress, I had my temporary "soft cast" taken off and replaced with another pink cast, this one of a far more boring pale pink variety. Even the rhinestones couldn't make it pop like my previous one... Silly public hospitals not caring about the vibrant colors of our casts! For shame. Of course, I had to go with a pink shade in an effort to match the majority of my wardrobe, especially because they didn't have animal print options! Anyhoo, this is what was under the soft cast, and what went under the hard one...

This was July 14th. Happy Bastille Day, indeed.

The only upside to this debacle (other than the whole building character and overcoming adversity thing) was that since I couldn't really work, I was able to go visit my handsome BF in Budapest, as he spent his whole summer in Europe. In two weeks, I visited Amsterdam, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague, so for someone who'd never been to continental Europe, I kinda lucked out! I forgot my sling on the way to Prague (big mistake while touristing) and had to purchase this one from a drugstore. It took two clerks, me, my BF, and a little old Czech lady 5 minutes to figure out how to fold it and use it, but we did:

July 26th, 2011.


After 5 way too long weeks, my cast came off! Yay. This is what it looked like 5 weeks post surgery. At this point, I could not bend any of the fingers on my left hand, and even touching them made me sick to my stomach. I had some sort of sensitivity disorder, which caused me to feel like I was always in intense pain, but with a lot of hard work, I was able to begin bending my fingers, squeezing my therapy putty, and bearing a tiny bit of weight on it.This was around August 15th, when the cast came off. I started physical therapy afterwards (shout out to Serena at VMC!) and was amazed how I went from zero mobility to about 40% within only 3 weeks. In my initial assessment, I rated in the 98th percentile in strength in my right hand, and the 2nd in my left. How pathetic is that?? But again, that just means there's no where to go but up! By the time I stopped therapy (about 5 or 6 weeks) I had far and away exceeded the goals we'd set for me, and kept eliciting comments like "I'm just so shocked, I honestly thought you were going to have lifelong complications based on the sensitivity and mobility issues you were experiencing when you first came in..." I totally recognize I'm tooting my own horn here, but it all goes back to my theory of hard work and exercise to get through ANYTHING.

Here's about a month after the cast came off:
When I went back to my regular workout routine, I modified it to basically whatever my wrist could tolerate. Where I'd been lifting 8 pounds, I could only lift 1, where I could handle 12, maybe 2 or 3 if I was lucky, but I made myself do the exact same things I'd been doing previously with the limited weight. I started doing pushups against a wall, then moved to against a ledge, and then finally, painfully, after about 2 months without a cast and 3 months after surgery, I moved to doing little halfway down pushups on the floor. I could do about 3 half ones before having to stop, and can now do 20 almost full ones! I still have a hard time pushing from all the way down, but I do what I can and keep improving!


The single weirdest thing about the whole experience was that under the cast, I grew a layer of thick, black hair that took about 5 months to fade away.... And before you think to yourself "why didn't she wax or shave it" let me remind you that even the shower water made me slightly queasy when it hit it for a good couple of months. I still don't have any feeling in my thumb and index finger, but hey, who needs feeling in your fingers...

I'm incredibly grateful to my surgeon, Dr Jeffrey Krygier, and his minions (esp nice Dr. Githens, whom I made promise not to kill me after they'd shot me up with Ativan and wheeled me onto the table), and all the lovely nurses in surgery and post-op. I apologize to the one I made "GO GET MY MOMMY" as the anesthesia wore off and I was a weeping, confused muddle of emotion and pain, but hopefully she's dealt with worse. My future in-laws, Dr. Eric Holmberg and LeAnn James, also helped me IMMENSELY, especially in the moments after my fall and the day before I got an x-ray. Eric actually put on my first soft cast!

So, I'm 6 months post-operation, and feeling great! I'm determined to do a Tough Mudder Challenge this summer to celebrate my full 100% recovery (which WILL happen, I don't believe in settling for 95% like I've been urged to do) and to quote my good friends Puff Daddy (I also don't believe in P. Diddy, Diddy, or Sean "Puffy" Combs) and Mace: can't nobody break my stride, can't nobody hold me down, oh no. I got to keep on movin'...

January 7, 2012. Feelin' good! :)