Monday, August 21, 2023

The Making (and fixing) of a Claw!

Its been another minute since you heard from me, and I have healed up enough that I can give you an idea of what I have been doing since I last wrote!  Fixing a Claw!  I introduced you to this problem a while back - you can read that one here!

Back a while ago - I started having some "twinges" in my right hand and  pain in my hand and elbow.  You all know that I do from gardening, quilting, writing, cooking and hockey things, as well as working a couple of jobs too!  It all sometimes add up to some issues!  

In March of this year I was getting ready to enjoy Spring Break and prepping to do some writing projects and planting I was hoping as well as having a "mini quilt retreat" too!  I started out by cutting out one of the "Murder of a Viking" quilt blocks (stay tuned for that later) and another set that was going to be a Tea Party donation.

The strip on the left is 92 individual pieces!

So as we got closer to the end of the school year after that fateful Spring Break, I began to have a lot of pain and numbness in my hand.  I could not hold a needle or hold a book or do alot of the planting that I needed to get going!

So off I went to the doctor who sent me to the Orthhopedic Surgeon!  A lovely Irish man who seems to actually care about what I had going on, and when he said I needed surgery I said great - Hows November for you?  He said Great because Ill be working on your hand next week!

SO........ Off we went to the Surgery Center to get it done and a few hours later.....
Laid up for at least a week healing elbow and wrist!

I had to wear a garbage bag to shower and try to do everything one armed.  I had to also keep it DRY and CLEAN!  Hand washing is a caution when you only have one had and you have to keep it dry too!  There is no such thing as clean and dry!

I thought I woud be able to do more than I could while I was laid up, and while I could do a bit of two hand typing it was too messy from the big wrap on there and it was more correcting than typing, so I had to give that up for a bit!
I was able to do a little sewing of pieces that I had cut before the surgery - there is no rotary cutting for a few more weeks until I heal up some more.  

So after 6 days I was back at work at the school, doing mostly left handed work and absolutely cooking from the heat and the cast!

After 10 days, I finally got the cast off - it ws so so itchy!
Because of the heat rash!!!!! When your office is 100 degrees all day and you have a cast on, there is no getting around the rash!  Ugh!

This owwie is bigger than I thought it would be.

And this one is smaller than I thought it would be.  


It really is healing up nicely, but I still am sore and bruised up and have no grip strength.  I also have only limited typing time before it is too tired, and sore to keep going!  
You can see the bruising better in this shot, a little of the rash that hangs on, and the elbow hole!  I am not in much pain other than incision pain now and muscle soreness, so I know it worked and Ill have no more claw hand!  I start Physical Therapy this coming week and start getting my strength back.

Stay tuned for more updates soon for how that is going, as soon as I can get a little stronger as well as updates on some of the other exciting things going on in life.  

Blessed be and dont be afraid to go to the doctor when you have a claw hand!













 

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