Not at all Humerus

Back in to see Mr Shoulder today. I am no longer wearing the sling, generally, and feel a lot better. The pain is manageable, and I am able to sleep pretty well. Still with the fort, and still on my right side only, but the spasms are gone now and the pain during the day is really not that noticeable. At night it still seizes up and wakes me, but I still have some Tramadol left and keep that for nights. I go to x-ray first, and then round to his waiting room. He seems delighted with progress. He comes round to crouch down next to my chair and ask "May I?" again, and is happy enough with the assisted ROM. He looks at the physio's report and asks about the running. His view is quite different - if it makes you feel better, then do it. Just don't fall over.  He does agree with the hydrotherapy though. I am not however allowed any more Tramadol or Diazepam, I'm supposed to be over the worst of the pain and should now be ok with standard off the shelf ibuprofen. Hmmm...

Into Week 7 now. A lot of online medical resources will tell you that the shoulder fractures can be healed by now. Mine, not so much. I am out walking along the High Street with my mother a few days later when I get distracted, don't notice a dropped kerb in front of me and step out into nothing. My foot crashes down to the lowered pavement, I don't fall but the pain that shoots through my arm is so horrific I completely lose it, stagger down an alley, and can't stop crying, shaking and wailing. This causes a degree of consternation in passersby, who scurry on a little faster. My mother has no idea what happened, as she was looking in a shop window, so she thinks someone has actually crashed into me. I can't speak to tell her what happened. It takes about 10 minutes before I can get myself together enough to attempt to walk home, and the pain takes hours to recede. It also causes a large amount of new bright red bruising to appear in my arm, so I'm concerned...

Hugely important day for me. I am now able to have a bath. I love baths, I have many baths, and have not been able to have a bath since the accident. Baths help my back unknot, and relax me. I literally have a dry run to see if I can actually manage to get into the bath, and more importantly, back out of the bath. It's not easy, and definitely not a spectator sport. I have to keep my left arm in the sling to get in the bath. To get out of the bath, my left arm has to go back in the sling, I use my right arm to lever myself up and manage to get myself on my knees facing the opposite direction, so my right arm is now on the non-wall side of the bath and I can then manage to stand. Tiring, but very, very worth the effort. My left arm being suspended in hot water is very pleasant and it's completely pain-free for the first time since this started.

The days sort of merge together now, with pain med schedules, physio exercises, physio appointments, and supplements. The other thing I start to understand is that it's very hard to compare injuries and get a sense of the prognosis, and nigh on impossible to get anyone to venture a guess at how long it will take for you to have a working shoulder again. The way the fracture happened seems to matter a lot. A lot of people get this sort of fracture from falling onto an outstretched hand, which transfers the shock up their arm and then shatters their humeral head in some fashion - surgical neck, anatomical neck, n-parts etc. What I did was smash into a bus pole with my upper arm, hard enough to break my humerus through the surgical neck. So that comes with a ton of soft tissue damage, swelling, and bruising.  My right hand was broken when the bus braked so hard the pole I was holding onto was wrenched out of my hand as I was thrown towards the front of the bus. So some blogs I read ...

Today I have two appointments in the city so I have to get the train. I also have to get into something other than workout gear and get a bra on. This is going to be quite a challenge. I am now able to move my arm a little more, so washing under my arm is easier. For underarms, it occurs to me that hair removal cream is the best option, as I don't have anywhere near enough movement to be able to use a razor. This works well, and with a spray deodorant, I can now venture out amongst society even on a day as hot as today. So for the first time since the accident I am now dressed, with makeup, and a proper bra on. Bras are tricky - you need to reverse it, fasten it round your waist at the front, then shift the fastener round to the back, while carefully feeding your broken arm into the correct armhole as it shifts around. Then carefully pull the strap up and over your shoulder. It's possible, as long as you're careful. It's amusing that it's actually the first thin...

The physio is walking distance from my house. Walking distance means a different thing to me now though, as walking is very slow, so what would have taken 15 minutes before now takes over 35 minutes. And it's very tiring, what with the lack of sleep and having to constantly deal with pain and working out how to do even simple things that didn't used to require thought, I'm always tired. Anyway, enough whining. I arrive and she is very nice, and goes through what happened, and asks what I usually do for exercise. Well, pilates, was planning to start dressage again (guessing that's a way off now), and running. I was actually just about to do Week 5 Run 3 on June 10th, the Sunday after the accident. I really miss running. And baths. And being able to stretch out my back. We amuse ourselves for a while trying to decipher the writing on the referral form. We can make out pendular, and the fracture symbol, and not much else. We start with pendulum exercises, after I...