Today, when trying to blow my nose before using my allergy nasal spray, I grabbed the tissue box on my desk at work. The tissues were not sticking out of the top like they should have been ... they were stuffed down inside still. For some reason, the last Kleenex did not pull out the next. After picking up the box, I tried pinching and grabbing the next Kleenex. Epic fail. After a good 15 seconds of trying to get the darn thing out (and 15 seconds is a long time, took me about 8 tries to get it out), I realized that I can't feel my fingers.
It always escapes me that I can't use my hand. I still get into the mindset that I CAN TOO carry in the bag of groceries, or vaccuum the carpets. There are a few big things that I absolutely cannot do such as scrub things, ride most rollercoasters, or hold on for dear life to the "Oh Shit!" handlebars.
After my first surgery and I came home from the hospital, we video called my family. My sister, her husband and their two kids were staying at my parents' house that Thanksgiving. My siter's very precocious daughter is very much like me. I remember she was sitting on my mom's lap, and we were all talking about the hospital, and the surgery, etc. I was explaining how I couldn't feel my hand, but I could wiggle some fingers pretty good, moving them up and down and bend them slightly. This was a very big deal to me at the time, mostly because I was afraid I'd lost the use of my hand forever. One of the things my mother used to do is try to alleviate heavy issues with humor. Often obnoxious humor. She asked me if I was working on my "bird." It took me a second. "Mom, are you asking if I can flip people off?" If you recall I come from a very devout Christian household where saying crap was a sin. My mom says "Yeah," and shows me her middle finger. She did it right in front of my sister's daughter. I told her that wasn't appropriate. She said "Oh, she's only 3, she doesn't know what it means. Show me your finger!" My mother was encouraging me to flip people off. This was a post-surgery therapy I could live with. Much better than lifting my arm over my head and trying to pump a fist about 10 times.
Losing feeling and range of motion is something I'll live with forever, and is not easily accepted. I'm had these issues for years now, yet when I go to grab that kleenex,or I make an effort to try and flip someone off with my right hand, it's evident. You would think by now that I would be used to this kind of thing.
Showering is easier now, but still difficult. A side effect of surgeries has been an extreme sensitivity to temperature changes, or, conversely, an apparent lack to knowing my temperature. It's weird. I have both worlds. The scar tissue in my arm has built up rather knotted, and it does not like hot water, or cold water when I'm washing my hands or showering. One therapy I used to do was sand at the hand therapist in Kansas City, which is like water therapy. You stick your arm inside what looks like a rolling heater, and it blows sand all over your arm. Some of the things you can do inside it are make repetetive movements with your hand and arm, or squeeze objects. I like the hand motions, and I've transfered that to water. Although my hand and arm do not like hot and col, they really enjoy water. Water breaks down barriers that are evident 99% of the time. I love making swishing motions with my hand and moving my arm gently from side to side anytime i'm in a pool for example. Nothing pops, no tendons twinge over bones and scar tissue, nothing feels completely out of place. But once you remove the water, it's like the kleenex box all over again.
What drives me to be so patient and to only contemplate is my lack of anger with my arm itself. Sure, I'm mad that it took years for doctors to discover that I wasn't a hypochondriac, suer I'm mad that I was born with a bone compensation, sure I'm mad that people treat me certain ways based upon my abbilities - but I don't let any of this stop me. I continue on with my life. I realize that anger gets you nowhere when you can't conctrol the situation. Since I can't control hardly anything involving my arm, I've become an overly patient person with myself. I don't push. I'm the ever driving hammer at the nail.
I don't recall if when I left the office today though, the kleenex I took brought up the next one .... I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I need to take my allergy medication.
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Monday, September 23, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Why I Never Play Football
I don't consider myself a cathartic person. However, the reality is, outwardly, I am cathartic, but inwardly I refuse to let myself fall apart. I compartmentalize, I handle, and I suck it up and get on with it. Nevertheless, it would not be fair to share this blog and fail to share important personal experiences.
I remember in high school that I had a boyfriend that I was crazy about. He was my first true love. We were together for little over a year, and I absolutely fell apart when he decided he did not want to be with me anymore. I remember absolute devastation. I was so distraught over how it ended, many crazy things happened. A neighbor (whom I am still friends with to this day) and another dear friend of mine witnessed my ex attempt to attack me at my home one evening. After that, I completely lost it. We couldn't be around each other in school, our friends had to choose sides (I got the short end of the stick), my mother tried to hospitalize me, I made up crazy lies and told them to everyone, and I remember out of spite dating someone my ex had accused me of flirting with and trying to cheat with; it went on. I really lost my mind over the emotional and verbal abuse I endured at his hands. It took me months to repair the damage he did to me. Many people never truly knew what our relationship was like, but it was traumatizing. (But to be fair, I did my share of damages.)
I ended up running away from home many times. Partially because of the relationship drama, and partially because my home life at the time was hostile. I lived temporarily with an aunt and uncle who I always babysat for; I lived with friends, and eventually the person I dated in my bout of spite. Just before the school year ended, the band had a barbecue at a local park. It was tradition, and graduating seniors got to do silly stuff. So, I drove my new boyfriend to the picnic where my old boyfriend and his new girlfriend (who I might add did not like me in the least) dominated the scene. We decided at some point that afternoon that we were going to play touch football. It was decided that the girls would be VS. the guys. After the first few touchdowns, we girls decided to try to play smarter. We coordinated in a huddle and decided that each girl would pick a person, and break the rules and tackle him. We all picked a guy and broke the huddle. One of the other girls forgot who her tackle was, and we ended up running to and jumping on the same guy. My tactic was to go for his hips - I was a powerful little stick and I believed I could take him. The other girl decided to jump right on his torso as he was running forward and he lost his balance. They both fell, I came down hard on my hands, and the girl landed on my head.
My neck snapped 3 times and I blacked out.
I remember coming to and there was laughing. The people I had thought were my friends had believed I was faking, my ex being the ringleader saying to leave me there, that I was faking. They took his word for it and went off to have lunch. I don't care if these people read this either, I think what they did was rotten.
The guy and girl both stayed there with me. They asked me questions like what did I feel like. I remember feeling extremely funny. Numb. I stated that I heard my neck snap exactly 3 times - that detail I will ever forget. Then, I said I couldn't feel the left side of my body. Instead of calling 911, my boyfriend at the time called his dad and had him come pick us up. I couldn't really move well. I was dizzy, nauseated, and I felt extremely detached from myself. I remember waiting for our ride, and my ex berating me, saying I was definitely faking and that I just wanted attention. I sat there and swallowed all the hate they threw until the car pulled up to the park.
They laid me on the back seat and drove me to the hospital. At the hospital, I waited, laying on the backseat unable to move. Paramedics came barreling out of the hospital yelling about moving me and not dialing 911. They brought one of those plastic rescue boards out, and attempted to slide it under me. It didn't work so well, but they managed to have slide and pull me onto their board. The strapped me to it in a medieval fashion with this huge contraption over my head. My parents who I was estranged from at the time were called by the hospital and they were asked to come down and be with me. They did many tests, x-rays, needle poking, and morphine. I was there around 12 hours before they sent me home.
From this moment on, catharsis became a dying art. I learned to be stronger. No more catharsis.
It was not until years later when Dr. P in Germany asked if I had had any prior trauma. Some medical doctors theorize that Kienbock's disease might be attributed to accidents such as falling on your hands or arms. True, I did have a pre-condition with a radius that grew too long, but the health of my hand and arm rapidly deteriorated after this accident back 12, almost 13 years ago now. I need to let go of this and stop being angry about it, but it's difficult. Doctors thought I may have broken my neck and had completely disregarded any other possible trauma having occurred to my body. It is hard to think about it to this day - considering I am hurt by many things that had occurred at this time in my life. The use of your hand is more important than spoiled friendships, ruined loves, severe depression, and humiliation. I keep trying to convince myself of this - every day. Each day I feel like it is living with the enemy in my right arm/hand. It pales the comparison to trivial matters of heartache. Your heart can mend itself. Kienbock's disease destroys part of your body.
I remember in high school that I had a boyfriend that I was crazy about. He was my first true love. We were together for little over a year, and I absolutely fell apart when he decided he did not want to be with me anymore. I remember absolute devastation. I was so distraught over how it ended, many crazy things happened. A neighbor (whom I am still friends with to this day) and another dear friend of mine witnessed my ex attempt to attack me at my home one evening. After that, I completely lost it. We couldn't be around each other in school, our friends had to choose sides (I got the short end of the stick), my mother tried to hospitalize me, I made up crazy lies and told them to everyone, and I remember out of spite dating someone my ex had accused me of flirting with and trying to cheat with; it went on. I really lost my mind over the emotional and verbal abuse I endured at his hands. It took me months to repair the damage he did to me. Many people never truly knew what our relationship was like, but it was traumatizing. (But to be fair, I did my share of damages.)
I ended up running away from home many times. Partially because of the relationship drama, and partially because my home life at the time was hostile. I lived temporarily with an aunt and uncle who I always babysat for; I lived with friends, and eventually the person I dated in my bout of spite. Just before the school year ended, the band had a barbecue at a local park. It was tradition, and graduating seniors got to do silly stuff. So, I drove my new boyfriend to the picnic where my old boyfriend and his new girlfriend (who I might add did not like me in the least) dominated the scene. We decided at some point that afternoon that we were going to play touch football. It was decided that the girls would be VS. the guys. After the first few touchdowns, we girls decided to try to play smarter. We coordinated in a huddle and decided that each girl would pick a person, and break the rules and tackle him. We all picked a guy and broke the huddle. One of the other girls forgot who her tackle was, and we ended up running to and jumping on the same guy. My tactic was to go for his hips - I was a powerful little stick and I believed I could take him. The other girl decided to jump right on his torso as he was running forward and he lost his balance. They both fell, I came down hard on my hands, and the girl landed on my head.
My neck snapped 3 times and I blacked out.
I remember coming to and there was laughing. The people I had thought were my friends had believed I was faking, my ex being the ringleader saying to leave me there, that I was faking. They took his word for it and went off to have lunch. I don't care if these people read this either, I think what they did was rotten.
The guy and girl both stayed there with me. They asked me questions like what did I feel like. I remember feeling extremely funny. Numb. I stated that I heard my neck snap exactly 3 times - that detail I will ever forget. Then, I said I couldn't feel the left side of my body. Instead of calling 911, my boyfriend at the time called his dad and had him come pick us up. I couldn't really move well. I was dizzy, nauseated, and I felt extremely detached from myself. I remember waiting for our ride, and my ex berating me, saying I was definitely faking and that I just wanted attention. I sat there and swallowed all the hate they threw until the car pulled up to the park.
They laid me on the back seat and drove me to the hospital. At the hospital, I waited, laying on the backseat unable to move. Paramedics came barreling out of the hospital yelling about moving me and not dialing 911. They brought one of those plastic rescue boards out, and attempted to slide it under me. It didn't work so well, but they managed to have slide and pull me onto their board. The strapped me to it in a medieval fashion with this huge contraption over my head. My parents who I was estranged from at the time were called by the hospital and they were asked to come down and be with me. They did many tests, x-rays, needle poking, and morphine. I was there around 12 hours before they sent me home.
From this moment on, catharsis became a dying art. I learned to be stronger. No more catharsis.
It was not until years later when Dr. P in Germany asked if I had had any prior trauma. Some medical doctors theorize that Kienbock's disease might be attributed to accidents such as falling on your hands or arms. True, I did have a pre-condition with a radius that grew too long, but the health of my hand and arm rapidly deteriorated after this accident back 12, almost 13 years ago now. I need to let go of this and stop being angry about it, but it's difficult. Doctors thought I may have broken my neck and had completely disregarded any other possible trauma having occurred to my body. It is hard to think about it to this day - considering I am hurt by many things that had occurred at this time in my life. The use of your hand is more important than spoiled friendships, ruined loves, severe depression, and humiliation. I keep trying to convince myself of this - every day. Each day I feel like it is living with the enemy in my right arm/hand. It pales the comparison to trivial matters of heartache. Your heart can mend itself. Kienbock's disease destroys part of your body.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Castie
My husband and I had been planning for months to fly his parents to Germany. See, years and years ago they were kind enough to help us out with our wedding granting us a small sum of cash on which we modestly married. We thought it would be kind to repay their loving favor by giving them a vacation of a lifetime. We bought their plane tickets, sent them packing lists, mad a budget with them, and planned the entire vacation which would be roughly 3 weeks long.
Well, we obviously had to plan my surgery around this vacation. Believe it or not, I had my surgery 2 1/2 weeks before they arrived. I was still entirely miserable and recovery was going hard and things just kept getting worse.
Three days before we were to pick up my in-laws, my husband took me to Dr. P.'s office to get a cast. The girls putting on my cast didn't speak hardly any English, so I was relegated to the duty to notify her if the casting was too tight or too loose. Those words were 'eng' and 'weit'. Putting on the cast wasn't easy. It kept getting too tight, so she'd have to loosen the material and cotton and start over. I didn't get a choice in color (like you would expect in America) so I had this basic blue clunker which I dubbed castie.
It was actually much easier to bathe with castie since all we had to do was tie plastic bags around my arm and tuck them in really tight so the cast wouldn't get wet. Of course, my husband still had to do all the washing but I started to help more now that I wasn't holding up the rubber arm.
The day before my in-laws hit the Frankfurt tarmac, I came down with a vicious fever. I have never had a fever like this in my life. I was doing my usual afternoon routine of lying on the couch and watching a movie when it really hit. I'd been feeling terrible all morning, and when my husband came home, I migrated from the bedroom to the couch with all my fluffy German pillows and down comforters. It's a Friday afternoon and I didn't have any obligations as I had already finished my schoolwork and I had canceled giving piano lessons until January.
It was around lunch time when I began to feel like I was in a sauna. We had huge windows in our living room, but it wasn't really a sunny day and it was December in an area on the same latitude as Calgary, Canada. Needless to say it was cold and there was snow on the ground. Our ambient floor heating never worked very well, so I knew something was wrong.
Of course, being the worrywart I've always been, I began to imagine something was terribly wrong with my arm. I have metal allergies, what if my body was rejecting the titanium? What if I have an infection? I realized by 3pm that day I had spent 8 hours unable to breathe and in an intense feverish state. I began to panic. I couldn't swallow, I couldn't eat, I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't get cool enough even after I opened up the windows to the winter air. I debated for about an hour whether or not to call the lady who lived a few blocks away who brought her children for lessons every Monday afternoon. I finally had to decide against calling her because I wasn't sure if this was an emergency, and she would be out at the Heidelberg Kaserne (military post) picking her kids up from school.
At 3pm I gave up and woke my husband up. I told him I'd tried to get my fever down but I didn't know if there was something wrong with my arm. My temperature kept reading 107 degrees and I wasn't able to breathe or swallow. He checked me out for himself and decided that we should go to the emergency clinic at the Heidelberg American hospital.
Well, that stupid castie got in the way for sure. We sped as fast as we could on the Autobahn to get to the hospital in time for the emergency clinic to see me before they closed. We told the doctors I'd just had surgery and that I was suffering symptoms similar to what I was told to watch for when it came to infections. Now, I know I was delirious. I was really on another planet. I was horrified to find out that after telling them about my 107 degree fever that had already lasted 8 hours was only a really bad flu. I think they wanted to laugh at me.
Fabulous.
I really thought something was really wrong. But, they kept assuring me that it was better safe than sorry. Then, they tried to send me away. I sat in the waiting room while they were trying to release me in absolute discomfort. I was pale, shaky; I couldn't breathe and couldn't stay warm or cool enough. A nurse came out to check on me about 30 minutes later and said that I was much too miserable to send home in the state I was in.
Thank God!
They took me back again and I told them I wasn't able to eat or drink anything all day because I was so miserable and that I'd had the fever all morning. They put me on a saline drip, drugged me up with Motrin, Tylenol and Sudafed, and then let me sit through 2 liters of saline before they sent me home with a bunch of medicine to keep me fever free.
Of course, the entire time I was at the hospital, my husband was hanging over a chair passed out. Since there weren't any other serious patients at the hospital, one of the nurses rolled a bed over by mine and let my husband sleep on it. He got about an hour of sleep which was really nice of the nurse to allow him. I made them check me for bronchitis before we left because I had just recovered recently from a bad bronchial infection that lasted 3 months, and with my family's history of severe bronchitis, I wanted to be safe.
I don't know what to think about this hospital visit really, because I was so delirious. I don't even know if I'm remembering it correctly. I do know, however, that I was scared out of my mind. I've had family members with MRSA infections, so I know the severity or infection and contamination. It's frightening to think that if something had gone wrong; my arm could have gone gangrenous. I'm lucky in many ways, but I think the flu that day was the best diagnosis I'd had that year.
Well, we obviously had to plan my surgery around this vacation. Believe it or not, I had my surgery 2 1/2 weeks before they arrived. I was still entirely miserable and recovery was going hard and things just kept getting worse.
Three days before we were to pick up my in-laws, my husband took me to Dr. P.'s office to get a cast. The girls putting on my cast didn't speak hardly any English, so I was relegated to the duty to notify her if the casting was too tight or too loose. Those words were 'eng' and 'weit'. Putting on the cast wasn't easy. It kept getting too tight, so she'd have to loosen the material and cotton and start over. I didn't get a choice in color (like you would expect in America) so I had this basic blue clunker which I dubbed castie.
It was actually much easier to bathe with castie since all we had to do was tie plastic bags around my arm and tuck them in really tight so the cast wouldn't get wet. Of course, my husband still had to do all the washing but I started to help more now that I wasn't holding up the rubber arm.
The day before my in-laws hit the Frankfurt tarmac, I came down with a vicious fever. I have never had a fever like this in my life. I was doing my usual afternoon routine of lying on the couch and watching a movie when it really hit. I'd been feeling terrible all morning, and when my husband came home, I migrated from the bedroom to the couch with all my fluffy German pillows and down comforters. It's a Friday afternoon and I didn't have any obligations as I had already finished my schoolwork and I had canceled giving piano lessons until January.
It was around lunch time when I began to feel like I was in a sauna. We had huge windows in our living room, but it wasn't really a sunny day and it was December in an area on the same latitude as Calgary, Canada. Needless to say it was cold and there was snow on the ground. Our ambient floor heating never worked very well, so I knew something was wrong.
Of course, being the worrywart I've always been, I began to imagine something was terribly wrong with my arm. I have metal allergies, what if my body was rejecting the titanium? What if I have an infection? I realized by 3pm that day I had spent 8 hours unable to breathe and in an intense feverish state. I began to panic. I couldn't swallow, I couldn't eat, I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't get cool enough even after I opened up the windows to the winter air. I debated for about an hour whether or not to call the lady who lived a few blocks away who brought her children for lessons every Monday afternoon. I finally had to decide against calling her because I wasn't sure if this was an emergency, and she would be out at the Heidelberg Kaserne (military post) picking her kids up from school.
At 3pm I gave up and woke my husband up. I told him I'd tried to get my fever down but I didn't know if there was something wrong with my arm. My temperature kept reading 107 degrees and I wasn't able to breathe or swallow. He checked me out for himself and decided that we should go to the emergency clinic at the Heidelberg American hospital.
Well, that stupid castie got in the way for sure. We sped as fast as we could on the Autobahn to get to the hospital in time for the emergency clinic to see me before they closed. We told the doctors I'd just had surgery and that I was suffering symptoms similar to what I was told to watch for when it came to infections. Now, I know I was delirious. I was really on another planet. I was horrified to find out that after telling them about my 107 degree fever that had already lasted 8 hours was only a really bad flu. I think they wanted to laugh at me.
Fabulous.
I really thought something was really wrong. But, they kept assuring me that it was better safe than sorry. Then, they tried to send me away. I sat in the waiting room while they were trying to release me in absolute discomfort. I was pale, shaky; I couldn't breathe and couldn't stay warm or cool enough. A nurse came out to check on me about 30 minutes later and said that I was much too miserable to send home in the state I was in.
Thank God!
They took me back again and I told them I wasn't able to eat or drink anything all day because I was so miserable and that I'd had the fever all morning. They put me on a saline drip, drugged me up with Motrin, Tylenol and Sudafed, and then let me sit through 2 liters of saline before they sent me home with a bunch of medicine to keep me fever free.
Of course, the entire time I was at the hospital, my husband was hanging over a chair passed out. Since there weren't any other serious patients at the hospital, one of the nurses rolled a bed over by mine and let my husband sleep on it. He got about an hour of sleep which was really nice of the nurse to allow him. I made them check me for bronchitis before we left because I had just recovered recently from a bad bronchial infection that lasted 3 months, and with my family's history of severe bronchitis, I wanted to be safe.
I don't know what to think about this hospital visit really, because I was so delirious. I don't even know if I'm remembering it correctly. I do know, however, that I was scared out of my mind. I've had family members with MRSA infections, so I know the severity or infection and contamination. It's frightening to think that if something had gone wrong; my arm could have gone gangrenous. I'm lucky in many ways, but I think the flu that day was the best diagnosis I'd had that year.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Rubber Arm
We went to see Dr. P. for a follow up appointment the week after I left the hospital. They took off my wrap. I had no idea that there was a half cast supporting the underside of my arm until they took everything off completely. My fingers were still not working, and I had to support my arm by holding it in my other arm to move it around. It just laid there on my leg palm up for most of that appointment.
Dr. P. checked the wound. It was all still black and extremely red. IF you weren't careful, you could glance at it and think I'd just taken a blade to my arm like Claire Danes on the Royal Tennenbaums. The glue was still holding the skin together.
Dr. P. also checked my sensory. He'd touch an area of my arm and I would feel it in a completely different place. It was still numb, like not even half awake. I couldn't really feel that he was touching me. He would ask me to wiggle each finger, and the only ones moving were still 3, 4 and 5. 2 was sort of twitching, and my thumb still wouldn't work. He said he didn't know what was going on, so he explained what happened in the procedure.
When you have an area operated on that has lots of muscles, tendons and nerves, they have to pick them up and move them out of the way before they can operate where they need to be. Basically, they took what looks like a binder clip to keep them away from the bone so they could saw and drill. Dr. P. said he thinks that this could have traumatized my nerves and that could be why there is poor response even after the anesthetics had flushed my body.
I ask him what the likelihood is that I'll be able to return to normal sensations and movements; he says that my condition is unusual. He thinks that it could take as long as 3 months considering my symptoms.
After he chatted with us, he sent us over to X-ray across the hall. I walk in with my wound wide open for everyone to stare at ... and they sure did. In Europe, staring is not associated with stigma like it is in the U.S. People love to observe others. It's actually considered rude to break eye contact if you're caught staring and act like you're doing something bad. It's acceptable to stare at anyone, for any reason. It's just something you get used to. On the one hand, it's not really that bad. They're never staring to make judgments or talk about you like Americans are. It's actually easy to get used to. However, when you walk into a room full of people with what looks like an attempted suicide wound that is screaming for attention, it gets incredibly uncomfortable. I knew I looked like a pathetic, bloated, sad person and it really looked like I attempted suicide.
I was happy to have to sit there for only a few minutes when they took me in to the X-ray. A few minutes later I was back in Dr. P.'s office, my husband clutching the X-ray photos and I delicately embracing my wounded arm. Dr. P. came back in and looked at the X-rays, said they were good, and that I should expect the healing process to take anywhere from 1 to 2 years. That meant, my bone growing back together. Only after it did could they remove the stabilizing screws and plate. They then wrapped me up and sent me home.
We went home that day with instructions to take my arm out of its wrap and half-cast to wash. I don't know if this was worse than the 3 straight weeks of nausea, but it was bad. I couldn't control the arm so I got really freaked out when it would flop around. It was like there were no bones in it, and it scared me. I kept thinking the screws are going to come loose or the plate will shift, or my bone will break and fracture further. It was horrifying to watch it wiggle around like rubber and not have any control. It also did not feel good. It was awkward and painful to say the least considering the mound of metal holding my arm together, and the skin glued over it.
Honestly, I think it scared my husband more than me because I'd get so freaked out I'd cry when he'd give me a bath. We lightly washed around the wound, but never over it. I wasn't allowed to soak it because of the glue holding it together. We had to pat it dry and make sure that it was completely dry before we wrapped it back up. But, he would charge through with his duty to take care of me. Usually, he feels helpless and doesn't know what to do because how can someone really do something about the pain? When it came to baths however, no problem. He was very careful and very good with me.
I don't really know how to describe this "rubber" arm to you. Not many people have had surgeries where their situation would be similar. I would best describe rubber arm like a newborn baby's neck. If you're not careful, it jerks and flops around dangerously. Let me tell you, it was the worst of the weird feelings in my arm that I've ever had when it comes to my Kienbock's Disease.
Dr. P. checked the wound. It was all still black and extremely red. IF you weren't careful, you could glance at it and think I'd just taken a blade to my arm like Claire Danes on the Royal Tennenbaums. The glue was still holding the skin together.
Dr. P. also checked my sensory. He'd touch an area of my arm and I would feel it in a completely different place. It was still numb, like not even half awake. I couldn't really feel that he was touching me. He would ask me to wiggle each finger, and the only ones moving were still 3, 4 and 5. 2 was sort of twitching, and my thumb still wouldn't work. He said he didn't know what was going on, so he explained what happened in the procedure.
When you have an area operated on that has lots of muscles, tendons and nerves, they have to pick them up and move them out of the way before they can operate where they need to be. Basically, they took what looks like a binder clip to keep them away from the bone so they could saw and drill. Dr. P. said he thinks that this could have traumatized my nerves and that could be why there is poor response even after the anesthetics had flushed my body.
I ask him what the likelihood is that I'll be able to return to normal sensations and movements; he says that my condition is unusual. He thinks that it could take as long as 3 months considering my symptoms.
After he chatted with us, he sent us over to X-ray across the hall. I walk in with my wound wide open for everyone to stare at ... and they sure did. In Europe, staring is not associated with stigma like it is in the U.S. People love to observe others. It's actually considered rude to break eye contact if you're caught staring and act like you're doing something bad. It's acceptable to stare at anyone, for any reason. It's just something you get used to. On the one hand, it's not really that bad. They're never staring to make judgments or talk about you like Americans are. It's actually easy to get used to. However, when you walk into a room full of people with what looks like an attempted suicide wound that is screaming for attention, it gets incredibly uncomfortable. I knew I looked like a pathetic, bloated, sad person and it really looked like I attempted suicide.
I was happy to have to sit there for only a few minutes when they took me in to the X-ray. A few minutes later I was back in Dr. P.'s office, my husband clutching the X-ray photos and I delicately embracing my wounded arm. Dr. P. came back in and looked at the X-rays, said they were good, and that I should expect the healing process to take anywhere from 1 to 2 years. That meant, my bone growing back together. Only after it did could they remove the stabilizing screws and plate. They then wrapped me up and sent me home.
We went home that day with instructions to take my arm out of its wrap and half-cast to wash. I don't know if this was worse than the 3 straight weeks of nausea, but it was bad. I couldn't control the arm so I got really freaked out when it would flop around. It was like there were no bones in it, and it scared me. I kept thinking the screws are going to come loose or the plate will shift, or my bone will break and fracture further. It was horrifying to watch it wiggle around like rubber and not have any control. It also did not feel good. It was awkward and painful to say the least considering the mound of metal holding my arm together, and the skin glued over it.
Honestly, I think it scared my husband more than me because I'd get so freaked out I'd cry when he'd give me a bath. We lightly washed around the wound, but never over it. I wasn't allowed to soak it because of the glue holding it together. We had to pat it dry and make sure that it was completely dry before we wrapped it back up. But, he would charge through with his duty to take care of me. Usually, he feels helpless and doesn't know what to do because how can someone really do something about the pain? When it came to baths however, no problem. He was very careful and very good with me.
I don't really know how to describe this "rubber" arm to you. Not many people have had surgeries where their situation would be similar. I would best describe rubber arm like a newborn baby's neck. If you're not careful, it jerks and flops around dangerously. Let me tell you, it was the worst of the weird feelings in my arm that I've ever had when it comes to my Kienbock's Disease.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
I Can Do Nothing All My Myself
After leaving the hospital, things got difficult. My husband had to work all the time and we were expecting his parents to arrive in 3 weeks. I had class and I also taught music lessons to 6 kids during the week. Additionally, we lived in a 4 storey home, and have a dog. There just wasn't anyone who wasn't busy or exhausted who could do anything.
My husband had to take over all my normal duties around the house - which was no easy task. I practically laid in bed or on the couch all day unless I had to give lessons, or use the computer. Okay, I'll be honest. Using the computer was horrible, I didn't really use it ... I massacred it. I'd go check my email, check my facebook, check my bills, etc, and all of this would take so long because I couldn't type and I couldn't use the mouse with my right hand. I wasn't great with using the mouse backwards, and I often threw fits because I'd screw something up.
Take for example the day I was trying to do bills. See, I have this system where I check the bank balance online every day, input anything into a spreadsheet that we do our balance on, and then make sure bills are set up for payment on the 1st or 15th. Since we were in Germany, this was very important to do every day. And, to also check the daily exchange rates so we knew if we could get Euros or not. So, I'm doing this, and I have a difficult time keeping from clicking the wrong thing. So I'm clicking around on a site where I'm paying on our bills and because I'm trying to use the mouse left-handed, I hit the wrong button. I paid the bill twice because I accidentally left the payment page, went back in, pushed the paid button, and it said that I had two pending payments. Needless to say I get really frustrated.
Throwing fits became somewhat regular. The pain was intolerable, and I got hardly any sleep because of it. I had to constantly take baths and could only take them when my husband was home because I couldn't wash myself, I couldn't get in and out without his help, and I couldn't shave. That was awful. So, I'd have to wait until he came home at 7 in the morning, and then until he'd get up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I taught him how to wash my hair and face, and then he'd scrub the ever loving crap out of me. Since the surgery I'd been sweating a lot - partially because of the pain and partly because of persistent fevers. It's important to me to smell good - or at least clean. I hate feeling gross and since I'd never been sweaty like this in my life, it made me angry and self-conscious.
I'd also have to wait for my husband to cook, to clean, to do laundry, and to do my schoolwork. I took classes with a university that has a division specializing in military overseas. It's a nationally accredited university, founded in the 1800s, so it's all legit and they're famous for their courses abroad. Anyhow, I worked it out with my instructor that I would dictate my assignments to my husband so I could get them in on time. It made us bother really mad. I have a schedule when it comes to school, and he is always a distraction - a good one though. Anyhow, we'd pull two chairs up to the desk, He'd find the assignment in the classroom for me, and then I would dictate my answers. I think really really fast, and I type really really fast. My husband, on the other hand, takes information very slow. He'll think it over very carefully. Well, his careful mind and my speedy one did not mesh well. I would dictate to him, and he'd interrupt to ask a bunch of questions, and then he'd type slow and tell me I was talking too fast. Believe me, this is no way to write papers. I'd yell at him that I couldn't control the situation and that the least he could do was keep up, and he'd yell at me and tell me I was being mean .... We did this every assignment until the class was over. It was not conducive to my learning astronomy mind you, but we always made up afterwards and promised we'd try harder not to lose our tempers.
Things were rough for the next few months all together, but I think that whole winter was like living in hell. I'd be in pain, I'd scream and cry all the time because I had no pain killers, and then the nausea came. That was the worst. My family has allergies to anesthetics - remember my tooth drilling? Well, I knew that because of the block and the sleeper stuff that I'd had a lot of anesthetics pumped into me. I took to eating crackers and soda or water all day every day. Any time I tried to eat a regular meal, I'd get sick. I spent an entire two weeks in complete nausea before my husband had a day off and could take me in to see Dr. R. I was miserable, and I knew that she would help.
So, I go in to Dr. R. with my husband. I tell her that I haven't eaten a proper meal since before the hospital, that I've been puking every day and that I've had constant nausea that I can't get rid of. She tells me in her posh British accent that she'll fix me right up, and then says she'll throw in some pain meds. I'm only supposed to take the nausea pills when I feel nauseous, and only take the pain pills when I'm in pain.
Well, I can tell you honestly I took none of those pain pills. I'd gotten so used to nothing working that it wasn't worth it to pump more crap into my body and risk getting sicker. So, I took those anti-nausea pills when I needed to, and they worked. I'd get nauseous, pop the pill, and in about 2 hours, things would be better because it was just the pain then.
I was relegated to doing absolutely nothing all the time. It got boring really fast since I couldn't hold a book open or get comfortable enough to read, I couldn't play my Wii or PS3, I got much too frustrated to use the computer, so I spent most of my days napping and watching movies. It was pretty bad. If I wanted a drink, I had to get my husband. If I wanted a change of clothes, I had to get my husband. If I wanted to move something or I spilled something (which happened a LOT), I had to get my husband. I took to wearing exercise and pajama pants all the time so I didn't have to get him to take me to the bathroom and I only wore tops with bras built in so he never had to put them on and take them off - which would be too difficult with my arm. I think the only things I could really do were open and close doors, put on my house clothes, and carry small objects like my ice pack. It was horrible, demeaning, and just plain annoying.
My husband tried to be supportive and compassionate, but he was either at work, or sleeping. He did take good care of me the few hours he was awake. He wouldn't sleep in the same bed as me for fear of hurting me. When he came home from work in the mornings, he'd make sure I was up before he went to bed. If I wasn't, he'd wait until I was. I told him to stop being silly, but he didn't start sleeping in the same bed with me until I got my cast the day before his parents arrived. He spent 3 weeks like that. I loved him for it even though it was a little protective.
Doing nothing seems like it's not really a big deal, until you lose the use of your dominant arm completely. It was still swollen much too large, but the icing and exercising had helped me regain slight movement in fingers 3, 4, and 5. I couldn't move 1 or 2 still, they sort of twitched when I moved them, but progress was very, very slow and erratic at best.
My husband had to take over all my normal duties around the house - which was no easy task. I practically laid in bed or on the couch all day unless I had to give lessons, or use the computer. Okay, I'll be honest. Using the computer was horrible, I didn't really use it ... I massacred it. I'd go check my email, check my facebook, check my bills, etc, and all of this would take so long because I couldn't type and I couldn't use the mouse with my right hand. I wasn't great with using the mouse backwards, and I often threw fits because I'd screw something up.
Take for example the day I was trying to do bills. See, I have this system where I check the bank balance online every day, input anything into a spreadsheet that we do our balance on, and then make sure bills are set up for payment on the 1st or 15th. Since we were in Germany, this was very important to do every day. And, to also check the daily exchange rates so we knew if we could get Euros or not. So, I'm doing this, and I have a difficult time keeping from clicking the wrong thing. So I'm clicking around on a site where I'm paying on our bills and because I'm trying to use the mouse left-handed, I hit the wrong button. I paid the bill twice because I accidentally left the payment page, went back in, pushed the paid button, and it said that I had two pending payments. Needless to say I get really frustrated.
Throwing fits became somewhat regular. The pain was intolerable, and I got hardly any sleep because of it. I had to constantly take baths and could only take them when my husband was home because I couldn't wash myself, I couldn't get in and out without his help, and I couldn't shave. That was awful. So, I'd have to wait until he came home at 7 in the morning, and then until he'd get up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I taught him how to wash my hair and face, and then he'd scrub the ever loving crap out of me. Since the surgery I'd been sweating a lot - partially because of the pain and partly because of persistent fevers. It's important to me to smell good - or at least clean. I hate feeling gross and since I'd never been sweaty like this in my life, it made me angry and self-conscious.
I'd also have to wait for my husband to cook, to clean, to do laundry, and to do my schoolwork. I took classes with a university that has a division specializing in military overseas. It's a nationally accredited university, founded in the 1800s, so it's all legit and they're famous for their courses abroad. Anyhow, I worked it out with my instructor that I would dictate my assignments to my husband so I could get them in on time. It made us bother really mad. I have a schedule when it comes to school, and he is always a distraction - a good one though. Anyhow, we'd pull two chairs up to the desk, He'd find the assignment in the classroom for me, and then I would dictate my answers. I think really really fast, and I type really really fast. My husband, on the other hand, takes information very slow. He'll think it over very carefully. Well, his careful mind and my speedy one did not mesh well. I would dictate to him, and he'd interrupt to ask a bunch of questions, and then he'd type slow and tell me I was talking too fast. Believe me, this is no way to write papers. I'd yell at him that I couldn't control the situation and that the least he could do was keep up, and he'd yell at me and tell me I was being mean .... We did this every assignment until the class was over. It was not conducive to my learning astronomy mind you, but we always made up afterwards and promised we'd try harder not to lose our tempers.
Things were rough for the next few months all together, but I think that whole winter was like living in hell. I'd be in pain, I'd scream and cry all the time because I had no pain killers, and then the nausea came. That was the worst. My family has allergies to anesthetics - remember my tooth drilling? Well, I knew that because of the block and the sleeper stuff that I'd had a lot of anesthetics pumped into me. I took to eating crackers and soda or water all day every day. Any time I tried to eat a regular meal, I'd get sick. I spent an entire two weeks in complete nausea before my husband had a day off and could take me in to see Dr. R. I was miserable, and I knew that she would help.
So, I go in to Dr. R. with my husband. I tell her that I haven't eaten a proper meal since before the hospital, that I've been puking every day and that I've had constant nausea that I can't get rid of. She tells me in her posh British accent that she'll fix me right up, and then says she'll throw in some pain meds. I'm only supposed to take the nausea pills when I feel nauseous, and only take the pain pills when I'm in pain.
Well, I can tell you honestly I took none of those pain pills. I'd gotten so used to nothing working that it wasn't worth it to pump more crap into my body and risk getting sicker. So, I took those anti-nausea pills when I needed to, and they worked. I'd get nauseous, pop the pill, and in about 2 hours, things would be better because it was just the pain then.
I was relegated to doing absolutely nothing all the time. It got boring really fast since I couldn't hold a book open or get comfortable enough to read, I couldn't play my Wii or PS3, I got much too frustrated to use the computer, so I spent most of my days napping and watching movies. It was pretty bad. If I wanted a drink, I had to get my husband. If I wanted a change of clothes, I had to get my husband. If I wanted to move something or I spilled something (which happened a LOT), I had to get my husband. I took to wearing exercise and pajama pants all the time so I didn't have to get him to take me to the bathroom and I only wore tops with bras built in so he never had to put them on and take them off - which would be too difficult with my arm. I think the only things I could really do were open and close doors, put on my house clothes, and carry small objects like my ice pack. It was horrible, demeaning, and just plain annoying.
My husband tried to be supportive and compassionate, but he was either at work, or sleeping. He did take good care of me the few hours he was awake. He wouldn't sleep in the same bed as me for fear of hurting me. When he came home from work in the mornings, he'd make sure I was up before he went to bed. If I wasn't, he'd wait until I was. I told him to stop being silly, but he didn't start sleeping in the same bed with me until I got my cast the day before his parents arrived. He spent 3 weeks like that. I loved him for it even though it was a little protective.
Doing nothing seems like it's not really a big deal, until you lose the use of your dominant arm completely. It was still swollen much too large, but the icing and exercising had helped me regain slight movement in fingers 3, 4, and 5. I couldn't move 1 or 2 still, they sort of twitched when I moved them, but progress was very, very slow and erratic at best.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Bloody Sunday
There really wasn't much blood on Sunday. Sunday was just my discharge day. I was only to spend 3 nights at the hospital, and I had made arrangements with my husband to pick me up at lunch time - we had asked the day before when I could leave.
A doctor came in that morning to check me, and told me to come back to see Dr. P. Monday afternoon. He said to leave my bandages on and wait for Dr. P. I could ice it, and I should still do my exercises since my arm was still a balloon the size of Texas.
So, later that morning, I ate breakfast alone as usual, got dressed for the first time all by myself ... which took about an hour. I brought simple tank tops with those built in bras so I didn't have to worry about getting a bra over my head or hooked, and the tank top was wide enough to easily stretch over my head. That and pajama bottoms were all I had brought except the jeans I wore the day of the surgery. I also figured that I shouldn't walk around in Germany in pajamas. No one does. Seriously, the only time I have ever seen a German in their pajamas was when I stayed with my exchange partner, and in store advertisements. I went into the bathroom around 9 o'clock to start dressing. My husband said he'd be there around 10. It took me the entire hour to finally get my jeans zipped and buttoned with just my left hand. Then, I went back out to my bed, sat on the edge and tried desperately to pull my socks on one handed. Yeah, that was no fun.
I was completely ready to go at 10 and there was no sign of my husband. Remember how I said that he went AWOL? Okay, so he's not there. So I start to slowly and awkwardly get my things out of the locker, put away my books and things into my back pack and moved all the stuff by the open door of my room. Germans don't bother things that people leave lying around so I wasn't worried my DVD player would be stolen or anything.
It was about 10:30 when I had everything all packed up and moved to the door. My roommate's husband showed up, they packed her up, and then they were leaving. She actually said goodbye and hoped I'd feel better. I told her I wouldn't (of course, she didn't know this because the entire time we roomed together, she only said she'd clal the nurse that one time!!!) They said "Oh," and then they gave me their best wishes and left. I kind of felt weird about that. I still do. I mean, if you room with someone for 3 whole days laying 5 feet from them, and you don't bother to try and talk when you know the person is helpless in a foreign hospital ... what do you expect? I know they didn't understand me but I didn't really care. I just wish that she would have been kinder as a host. I mean, she had been in the room a whole day before I had been. Anyway, they toted out her millions of flowers and gifts and left me sitting by the door waiting.
I got tired of waiting at about 11 and called my husband from the room phone after the nurses came and took my bed out of the room to strip it down and clean. He didn't answer. I don't know how long I waited, but I called him again on his cell phone and he said he was on his way. I told him he was late. He said he overslept - he did have to work the night before. And that night too.
I was irritated. I love my husband dearly and we rarely have any problems but this just aggravated me. I had been waiting at the hospital for 2 hours for him to show up. I had to dress myself, pack myself, and sit there. I'm sure he apologized profusely, but it wasn't really his fault. I was just in a lot of pain and exhausted. I hadn't taken a nap yet.
We leave the hospital and ride down to the garage. When we get to the car, I see he was thoughtful enough to remember to get the pillow I specifically asked for the day before, for the car ride home. We have this gorgeous bedding that is Moraccan themed. It has all these matching pillows with various designs that we don't sleep with, but use to decorate our bed all nice and pretty. I asked him to bring this roll pillow that's about a foot and a half long, and maybe 10 inches around. He helped me get in the car and put on the seatbelt without strangling or injuring myself. Then he hands me the pillow. I gently lift my arm and tell him to stuff it between my chest and arm so it lays on it. I had figured that driving home would involve quite a lot of jostling. If I wasn't careful, I could be in more pain or end up making the wound worse, etc. This was a pure genius idea. I left that pillow in the car for months to use as a rest/barrier.
When we got home, Ihad my husband settle me on the couch in the living room with blankets, pillows, a movie, and water. He went back upstairs to bed. It was a rare day in our house that I allowed this, but I let my dog up on my legs. He lay across them and cuddled me. I remember I watched that Lucille Ball movie with the trailer, Arsenic and Old Lace, and the Marx brothers movie where they're on a boat in a tiny room.
My husband got up not long before he had to leave for work to shower and get ready. He got me some crackers and a soda because I was feeling nauseous, kissed me, and left. He looked like he got run over by a semi.
After he left it was around 9pm. I finished what I was watching, then dragged my pillows up the stairs with me. I made a cozy bed with pillows piled high on my right side so I could elevate my arm. Then, I went back downstairs for the ice pack. We have this huge ice pack that is a square. It's like a foot by a foot, so it would wrap nicely around my arm. I dragged it and a handful of towels upstairs. I had an easier time taking my pants off than I thought I would, got into bed, wrapped the towels around the ice pack, and then around my arm, propped it up on the pillows and tried to sleep.
A doctor came in that morning to check me, and told me to come back to see Dr. P. Monday afternoon. He said to leave my bandages on and wait for Dr. P. I could ice it, and I should still do my exercises since my arm was still a balloon the size of Texas.
So, later that morning, I ate breakfast alone as usual, got dressed for the first time all by myself ... which took about an hour. I brought simple tank tops with those built in bras so I didn't have to worry about getting a bra over my head or hooked, and the tank top was wide enough to easily stretch over my head. That and pajama bottoms were all I had brought except the jeans I wore the day of the surgery. I also figured that I shouldn't walk around in Germany in pajamas. No one does. Seriously, the only time I have ever seen a German in their pajamas was when I stayed with my exchange partner, and in store advertisements. I went into the bathroom around 9 o'clock to start dressing. My husband said he'd be there around 10. It took me the entire hour to finally get my jeans zipped and buttoned with just my left hand. Then, I went back out to my bed, sat on the edge and tried desperately to pull my socks on one handed. Yeah, that was no fun.
I was completely ready to go at 10 and there was no sign of my husband. Remember how I said that he went AWOL? Okay, so he's not there. So I start to slowly and awkwardly get my things out of the locker, put away my books and things into my back pack and moved all the stuff by the open door of my room. Germans don't bother things that people leave lying around so I wasn't worried my DVD player would be stolen or anything.
It was about 10:30 when I had everything all packed up and moved to the door. My roommate's husband showed up, they packed her up, and then they were leaving. She actually said goodbye and hoped I'd feel better. I told her I wouldn't (of course, she didn't know this because the entire time we roomed together, she only said she'd clal the nurse that one time!!!) They said "Oh," and then they gave me their best wishes and left. I kind of felt weird about that. I still do. I mean, if you room with someone for 3 whole days laying 5 feet from them, and you don't bother to try and talk when you know the person is helpless in a foreign hospital ... what do you expect? I know they didn't understand me but I didn't really care. I just wish that she would have been kinder as a host. I mean, she had been in the room a whole day before I had been. Anyway, they toted out her millions of flowers and gifts and left me sitting by the door waiting.
I got tired of waiting at about 11 and called my husband from the room phone after the nurses came and took my bed out of the room to strip it down and clean. He didn't answer. I don't know how long I waited, but I called him again on his cell phone and he said he was on his way. I told him he was late. He said he overslept - he did have to work the night before. And that night too.
I was irritated. I love my husband dearly and we rarely have any problems but this just aggravated me. I had been waiting at the hospital for 2 hours for him to show up. I had to dress myself, pack myself, and sit there. I'm sure he apologized profusely, but it wasn't really his fault. I was just in a lot of pain and exhausted. I hadn't taken a nap yet.
We leave the hospital and ride down to the garage. When we get to the car, I see he was thoughtful enough to remember to get the pillow I specifically asked for the day before, for the car ride home. We have this gorgeous bedding that is Moraccan themed. It has all these matching pillows with various designs that we don't sleep with, but use to decorate our bed all nice and pretty. I asked him to bring this roll pillow that's about a foot and a half long, and maybe 10 inches around. He helped me get in the car and put on the seatbelt without strangling or injuring myself. Then he hands me the pillow. I gently lift my arm and tell him to stuff it between my chest and arm so it lays on it. I had figured that driving home would involve quite a lot of jostling. If I wasn't careful, I could be in more pain or end up making the wound worse, etc. This was a pure genius idea. I left that pillow in the car for months to use as a rest/barrier.
When we got home, Ihad my husband settle me on the couch in the living room with blankets, pillows, a movie, and water. He went back upstairs to bed. It was a rare day in our house that I allowed this, but I let my dog up on my legs. He lay across them and cuddled me. I remember I watched that Lucille Ball movie with the trailer, Arsenic and Old Lace, and the Marx brothers movie where they're on a boat in a tiny room.
My husband got up not long before he had to leave for work to shower and get ready. He got me some crackers and a soda because I was feeling nauseous, kissed me, and left. He looked like he got run over by a semi.
After he left it was around 9pm. I finished what I was watching, then dragged my pillows up the stairs with me. I made a cozy bed with pillows piled high on my right side so I could elevate my arm. Then, I went back downstairs for the ice pack. We have this huge ice pack that is a square. It's like a foot by a foot, so it would wrap nicely around my arm. I dragged it and a handful of towels upstairs. I had an easier time taking my pants off than I thought I would, got into bed, wrapped the towels around the ice pack, and then around my arm, propped it up on the pillows and tried to sleep.
Friday, December 16, 2011
No medicine = good medicine?
You might be shocked (or horrified) to find that while I was in the hospital, I had almost no pain meds. Germans take a very holistic and homeopathic approach to treatment. They say that the Germans are excellent diagnosticians, but the Americans are better at treatment. I don't know if this is really true, but I do know that Germans still ascribe to remedy situations with as little drug as possible. People are still sent to spas to treat a variety of conditions and diseases in example - in fact, your medical insurance would cover this. And, many spas don't allow you in without a prescription, no lie.
So, when I was given practically nothing at the hospital, I wasn't surprised. Every now and then a nurse would come it, ask about my pain, then check if she could give me morphine (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.). In the entire time I was in the hospital, I had 2 small doses of morphine, an ibuprofen in the morning and evening that did absolutely nothing, and vitamins. When I was feeling nauseous, a nurse would come in and put on a saline drip. I don't know why this helped, but it did. I was nauseous a lot in the hospital.
Morphine is serious. It, however, also did nothing to treat my pain. I'm notorious for being difficult to treat pain-wise, so this didn't surprise me. I'd had morphine before following a very serious neck injury. I hate it. It's the worst feeling, ice entering your veins and numbing your senses ... but not the pain! Even though I was given a very small amount of medicine, it didn't work. This equals, to me, no medicine. I still had all the pain.
The second day in the hospital was better. My husband came around lunch time again and showered and changed me. I was given high praise for my German skills by a nurse to whom I had done the self-deprecation routine of "Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch," which means I only speak a bit of German. She didn't think so, but I told her it's hard to communicate in a hospital as opposed to communicating with a neighbor, a restaurant or grocery store. Those are words I know. Hospital words were not words they teach you in German class.
One of the words that I learned while I was in the hospital I sort of already knew, but I suppose it was more colloquialism. Krankenschwester is the term for a nurse. It literally translates to sick sister. Well, they simply refer to nurses in a general term - schwester. This is just like saying sister. It's kind of funny to me, but in a way is comforting. I mean, my sister never took care of me when I was sick. But, back in past centuries, the sisters of the church would be charged with the care of hospital and hospice patients. So it's not only endearing, it's historically significant. But, it's still funny they say sister. I keep thinking my sister, but nope!
Saturday was a bright day. We had a big row of windows in our room, and it was bright all the way up until sunset. Even though our room faced a side street as opposed to the main city square, we still got an awful lot of light. Germans are also excellent architecturally. They are pros at putting in windows that get lots of light. They definitely have an edge over American construction and architecture. Anyway, it was so bright that we didn't need the lights on. I read my school books most of the morning, and then my husband came again after lunch. He showered and changed me again, and we played a lot of Skip-Bo. I actually felt so good; I got out of bed and played at the table in our room. Then we went and walked around the floor that I was on when the doctors came to do rounds on my roommate. The entire hallway towards the middle of the building was a huge row of windows that faced down into the main lobby, and up to the greenhouse ceiling. From my floor, we could see this piece of artwork hanging from the ceiling. It was glass bits hanging on stringy metal rods. It looked like it belonged at the Tacoma Museum of Glass of something. After we walked around the whole hallway, we sat at some comfy chairs and a table just outside my room and played more Skip-Bo.
My husband left early to go order dinner from our favorite restaurant, this little Indian place in the pedestrian zone. They had delicious food and he wanted it bad. Plus, it takes them a long time to make the food because they cook nothing until you order. So, he was going to be down there for a while.
While he was gone and getting is Naan on, I got two visits. First, I got a visit from someone who is a patient liaison for our military insurance. She came down to make sure I was being communicated with basically. It was kind of a pointless trip, but I didn't exactly have anyone come visit me (even though we did have friends in Germany) or call me. So, I didn't mind much. Besides, she had a funny half-British accent. You could tell that she either married an American soldier, or lived most of her career in England.
After the insurance lady left, a doctor came in with a nurse and told me Dr. P. couldn't make it today, so he was filling in. He's the other hand specialist in the orthopedics clinic, and was quite a bit younger than Dr. P. He said they were going to take a look at my arm.
I'm weirdly excited. I was the freak who liked the day in chemistry class when our teacher showed us an autopsy - in fact, for 2 years I wanted to be a pathologist or a coroner. I also was the freak who liked watching those medical shows on body part reattachment. They used to have this exhibit at the Seattle Science Center that my dad took us to, and I would sit there and watch them reattach fingers, hands, toes, ears...
So the nurse cuts the bandages in half and peels them outward. I have a huge cut from my wrist to halfway up my arm. It's about 6 or 7 inches long. There are no stitches, and you can see these huge black scabs that have crystallized over the large gaps between the skin. I ask what they secured my wound close with. It was glue, he said. Cool. Off to the side of the bottom of my scar, there's a tube sticking out. What's that? It's to drain the wound he says. In fact, he says because there's been so little bleeding that they're going to take it out. Cool.
I'm not normally bothered by things like needles and shots. I'm not very squeamish. I can eat dinner though an episode of Bones or Hoarders and not even bat an eyelash. So, when the nurse tells me to look away, I kind of wrinkle my eyebrows. What? And miss this? Heck no! The doctor puts on gloves, and just yanks the little tube out. I didn't really feel anything except a weird sensation. I suppose it would be akin to removing a ring from your ringer, but inside your skin. It didn't hurt and just felt plain bizarre.
Some blood welled up and the nurse swabbed it away. The doctor then poked and prodded my arm and fingers. He tried to get me to grasp his hand. He said that the fact that I still couldn't feel anything or move my hand much was unusual. He asked if I was doing my exercises. I told him I was. I tried to remember to do them every hour, but I got tired a lot and napped before my husband showed up. So, I suppose I did it about 8 times the day before, and a few times today already. He suggests trying to do it every half hour. Okay, I guess. I really am not going to remember that recommendation much better, but whatever. I'll try.
I think because the doctor called him, the anesthesiologist shows up. He checks my nerves and sensory by poking and prodding too. He has me explain to him what I feel, if anything. I honestly can't feel much and can tell my nerves are deadened to a strange point. He says this is uncommon. He explains that in order to do the join leveling procedure, the doctor had to cut me open, pick up all my nerves, muscles and tendons, and move them to the side. It is possible they have not settled from this dramatic experience. He thinks I'll regain most of my sensory in the next month.
The doctors leave, and the nurse re-bandages me up. She also leaves to go get a new ice pack. I hated that thing to begin with, but I sort of am hooked now. I actually asked her for a new one ... oy!
My husband came back when I had almost finished dinner. It was a fish dish, and because he's allergic to fish, he couldn't have any. But, I ate about half my food this meal. I remember also that there was a dessert cup. I think it was quark with forest berries. There were Heidel berries and blue berries, and himmel berries ... it was delicious. I usually am very very picky about my fruit, and I'm lactose intolerant, but for some reason I ate it all. I felt bad when my husband showed up because he really should have tried it because he would have loved it. But, he brought his Indian food. He had chicken nurani and garlic Naan. It was so good. I ate a bite. I didn't feel bad about the smell either, because my roommate was sort of oddly obnoxious. She was always having visitors and being loud enough to keep me from napping or sleeping, her doctors kept kicking us out of the room, she had been leaving the window wide open all day and all night because of the heater in the room, and she never spoke to me except that one time she called the nurse when I was puking. So, I hope the smell either made her tummy hurt, or annoyed her.
My second day in the hospital wasn't too bad. It would have been nice to have had some actual medicine. The entire day was spent in excruciating pain but no one would have known it. I worried though. The pain was bad. I didn't know how I would make it through the next 1-2 years with this stupid bar and screws in my arm. I could feel them even though the doctor said I wouldn't. I could feel the wrongness in my bones. I could feel the sawed bone's tenderness. The pain was an enormous burden.
That night was my worst night of sleep. My roommate had guests until almost 11, and I spent the entire night rolling back and forth on my bed in pain, slamming the nurse's button. They'd come in, check my blood pressure and heart rate, give me a drink, and tell me to try to sleep. The pain that night was the worst I'd endure post-surgery. I think my body finally realized what had happened.
So, when I was given practically nothing at the hospital, I wasn't surprised. Every now and then a nurse would come it, ask about my pain, then check if she could give me morphine (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.). In the entire time I was in the hospital, I had 2 small doses of morphine, an ibuprofen in the morning and evening that did absolutely nothing, and vitamins. When I was feeling nauseous, a nurse would come in and put on a saline drip. I don't know why this helped, but it did. I was nauseous a lot in the hospital.
Morphine is serious. It, however, also did nothing to treat my pain. I'm notorious for being difficult to treat pain-wise, so this didn't surprise me. I'd had morphine before following a very serious neck injury. I hate it. It's the worst feeling, ice entering your veins and numbing your senses ... but not the pain! Even though I was given a very small amount of medicine, it didn't work. This equals, to me, no medicine. I still had all the pain.
The second day in the hospital was better. My husband came around lunch time again and showered and changed me. I was given high praise for my German skills by a nurse to whom I had done the self-deprecation routine of "Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch," which means I only speak a bit of German. She didn't think so, but I told her it's hard to communicate in a hospital as opposed to communicating with a neighbor, a restaurant or grocery store. Those are words I know. Hospital words were not words they teach you in German class.
One of the words that I learned while I was in the hospital I sort of already knew, but I suppose it was more colloquialism. Krankenschwester is the term for a nurse. It literally translates to sick sister. Well, they simply refer to nurses in a general term - schwester. This is just like saying sister. It's kind of funny to me, but in a way is comforting. I mean, my sister never took care of me when I was sick. But, back in past centuries, the sisters of the church would be charged with the care of hospital and hospice patients. So it's not only endearing, it's historically significant. But, it's still funny they say sister. I keep thinking my sister, but nope!
Saturday was a bright day. We had a big row of windows in our room, and it was bright all the way up until sunset. Even though our room faced a side street as opposed to the main city square, we still got an awful lot of light. Germans are also excellent architecturally. They are pros at putting in windows that get lots of light. They definitely have an edge over American construction and architecture. Anyway, it was so bright that we didn't need the lights on. I read my school books most of the morning, and then my husband came again after lunch. He showered and changed me again, and we played a lot of Skip-Bo. I actually felt so good; I got out of bed and played at the table in our room. Then we went and walked around the floor that I was on when the doctors came to do rounds on my roommate. The entire hallway towards the middle of the building was a huge row of windows that faced down into the main lobby, and up to the greenhouse ceiling. From my floor, we could see this piece of artwork hanging from the ceiling. It was glass bits hanging on stringy metal rods. It looked like it belonged at the Tacoma Museum of Glass of something. After we walked around the whole hallway, we sat at some comfy chairs and a table just outside my room and played more Skip-Bo.
My husband left early to go order dinner from our favorite restaurant, this little Indian place in the pedestrian zone. They had delicious food and he wanted it bad. Plus, it takes them a long time to make the food because they cook nothing until you order. So, he was going to be down there for a while.
While he was gone and getting is Naan on, I got two visits. First, I got a visit from someone who is a patient liaison for our military insurance. She came down to make sure I was being communicated with basically. It was kind of a pointless trip, but I didn't exactly have anyone come visit me (even though we did have friends in Germany) or call me. So, I didn't mind much. Besides, she had a funny half-British accent. You could tell that she either married an American soldier, or lived most of her career in England.
After the insurance lady left, a doctor came in with a nurse and told me Dr. P. couldn't make it today, so he was filling in. He's the other hand specialist in the orthopedics clinic, and was quite a bit younger than Dr. P. He said they were going to take a look at my arm.
I'm weirdly excited. I was the freak who liked the day in chemistry class when our teacher showed us an autopsy - in fact, for 2 years I wanted to be a pathologist or a coroner. I also was the freak who liked watching those medical shows on body part reattachment. They used to have this exhibit at the Seattle Science Center that my dad took us to, and I would sit there and watch them reattach fingers, hands, toes, ears...
So the nurse cuts the bandages in half and peels them outward. I have a huge cut from my wrist to halfway up my arm. It's about 6 or 7 inches long. There are no stitches, and you can see these huge black scabs that have crystallized over the large gaps between the skin. I ask what they secured my wound close with. It was glue, he said. Cool. Off to the side of the bottom of my scar, there's a tube sticking out. What's that? It's to drain the wound he says. In fact, he says because there's been so little bleeding that they're going to take it out. Cool.
I'm not normally bothered by things like needles and shots. I'm not very squeamish. I can eat dinner though an episode of Bones or Hoarders and not even bat an eyelash. So, when the nurse tells me to look away, I kind of wrinkle my eyebrows. What? And miss this? Heck no! The doctor puts on gloves, and just yanks the little tube out. I didn't really feel anything except a weird sensation. I suppose it would be akin to removing a ring from your ringer, but inside your skin. It didn't hurt and just felt plain bizarre.
Some blood welled up and the nurse swabbed it away. The doctor then poked and prodded my arm and fingers. He tried to get me to grasp his hand. He said that the fact that I still couldn't feel anything or move my hand much was unusual. He asked if I was doing my exercises. I told him I was. I tried to remember to do them every hour, but I got tired a lot and napped before my husband showed up. So, I suppose I did it about 8 times the day before, and a few times today already. He suggests trying to do it every half hour. Okay, I guess. I really am not going to remember that recommendation much better, but whatever. I'll try.
I think because the doctor called him, the anesthesiologist shows up. He checks my nerves and sensory by poking and prodding too. He has me explain to him what I feel, if anything. I honestly can't feel much and can tell my nerves are deadened to a strange point. He says this is uncommon. He explains that in order to do the join leveling procedure, the doctor had to cut me open, pick up all my nerves, muscles and tendons, and move them to the side. It is possible they have not settled from this dramatic experience. He thinks I'll regain most of my sensory in the next month.
The doctors leave, and the nurse re-bandages me up. She also leaves to go get a new ice pack. I hated that thing to begin with, but I sort of am hooked now. I actually asked her for a new one ... oy!
My husband came back when I had almost finished dinner. It was a fish dish, and because he's allergic to fish, he couldn't have any. But, I ate about half my food this meal. I remember also that there was a dessert cup. I think it was quark with forest berries. There were Heidel berries and blue berries, and himmel berries ... it was delicious. I usually am very very picky about my fruit, and I'm lactose intolerant, but for some reason I ate it all. I felt bad when my husband showed up because he really should have tried it because he would have loved it. But, he brought his Indian food. He had chicken nurani and garlic Naan. It was so good. I ate a bite. I didn't feel bad about the smell either, because my roommate was sort of oddly obnoxious. She was always having visitors and being loud enough to keep me from napping or sleeping, her doctors kept kicking us out of the room, she had been leaving the window wide open all day and all night because of the heater in the room, and she never spoke to me except that one time she called the nurse when I was puking. So, I hope the smell either made her tummy hurt, or annoyed her.
My second day in the hospital wasn't too bad. It would have been nice to have had some actual medicine. The entire day was spent in excruciating pain but no one would have known it. I worried though. The pain was bad. I didn't know how I would make it through the next 1-2 years with this stupid bar and screws in my arm. I could feel them even though the doctor said I wouldn't. I could feel the wrongness in my bones. I could feel the sawed bone's tenderness. The pain was an enormous burden.
That night was my worst night of sleep. My roommate had guests until almost 11, and I spent the entire night rolling back and forth on my bed in pain, slamming the nurse's button. They'd come in, check my blood pressure and heart rate, give me a drink, and tell me to try to sleep. The pain that night was the worst I'd endure post-surgery. I think my body finally realized what had happened.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The Surgery - Part I
Most people know what to expect going in to surgery. I was an American in a foreign country, at a hospital where even the best English speakers don't act like the medical professionals from the states and tell you what you need to know.
I assumed (no, I did not make an ass of myself) that my surgery prep would take a while. My surgery time was 1pm. My husband, being the smooth talker he can be, arranged to trade days off with someone at work so he could be free the whole day. We dropped the dog off at the neighbor's' house and headed out to the hospital.
We get to the clinic a little before we're supposed to be there, and they take me back immediately. The clinic is rather small, and the surgery for orthopedics is in the same office. It's actually quite a small clinic. When you walk in, the desk and exam rooms are off to the left, the waiting enclosure is directly ahead, and the surgery center is to the left.
I kissed my husband, told him I loved him, and went with the nurse. She took me to the locker room where she told me to take my shoes off, take my shirt off, and put my purse and backpack in the locker. Now, this room is out in the open. Nudity is absolutely no issue in Germany. Nobody would pay much attention if someone was walking around in a bustier and thong on the street, so everyone walking around and working while I was undressing was just ignoring me as if I were a light switch. No problem, I don't really care anyway because I'm in a hospital - they see worse than a 26 year old woman walking around in her bra and jeans.
So, I'm waiting, topless for the nurse to come back when the front desk nurse comes barging in to the surgery center and asks me if I checked in. I asked if she meant the front desk of the clinic. She says no, downstairs. Oh. Well. This is why being American in Germany is difficult sometimes. They assume you know how their country works when it comes to certain systems. She tells me she already sent my husband downstairs; I should go meet him in the patient center.
Okay, so I hastily put back on my shirt and shoes and run down the two flights of stairs to the lobby and into the patient center. Apparently, we were supposed to check in there, before going to the clinic. Way to go explaining this to us Atos Klinikum. So, we sign a bunch of papers, we give them our personal information, we give them our insurance letters approving surgery and hospital stay (which I go to pick how long I stayed - oddly enough!) and then they asked me what I wanted for dinner.
After a brief 10 minutes doing all this, we were set free and we ran back up two flights to the clinic. We walk in and the girls at the front desk tell me to go on back and get undressed again. So, I kiss my husband and tell him I love him again, and once again proceed to undress and shove all my crap into a locker.
An older gentleman comes up to me. He's probably 40, but he looks younger. He brings me around the corner from the locker room into a small exam room and has me lie down on the table. So, there I am, topless, lying on a table with some man who leaves me for about 5 minutes, and then returns with a bucket of water. He tells me his name, but I can't remember it. He's the Anesthesiologist that works in the hospital. He's got on this super long white coat with his name embroidered on a front pocket. He's very nice, and speaks English very well. He tells me to sit up. So why was I lying down? I don't know. Anyway, he pulls up a spinning stool and starts unpacking a bunch of things.
They are going to try and do a block on my arm. What a block is in anesthetics is the isolation of a body part or region for numbing so the patient can be awake during surgery. I'm horrified. I specifically asked to be put to sleep at my pre-screen. This is what I was talking about the other day. They didn't understand my family's history of allergies with anesthetics. I tell the anesthesiologist this, but he insists this is what Dr. P. wants to do. But, he explains, they will put me to sleep if the block doesn't work. Fine. Whatever.
So, this guy has me stick my hand in the bucket of water and pump my fist several times. Then he lifts my arm out of the water, has me hold it straight up in the air and he prods my armpit. I do this a few times, and then he has me lie down with my arm over my head. Good thing I shaved my pits before coming in that day, right?
He starts pressing and pushing around in my armpit. He tells me he's looking for the nerve that will deaden my arm. He does this for a while and I lose track of time because it's incredibly uncomfortable and all I can think about is "Stop it!" It feels like hitting your funny bone, over and over. Only in your armpit. It's an awful feeling. I'm trying not to think about it, but then I think about how I don't want to be awake for the surgery and hear the bone saw or the drilling. Or see people moving around with bloody gloves.
When he's satisfied he has my nerve in a good spot, the anesthesiologist brings out this huge needle. He tells me to hold my breath and exhale slowly while he shoots the block drugs. Simple right? Oh on. No no. This was the worst experience of my life to date. I mean, the football injury was bad. But this was pure torture. He sticks the needle in, wiggles it around quite a bit trying to hit the nerve, and then he shoots the block in. I felt like I was going to die. My eyes started leaking immediately uncontrollably, and I tried to exhale as slowly as I could without getting all snotty in the nose - which can be hard to do when you're crying.
When he's done doing this, He forces me to move my arm around. This is just as bad. That nerve is so angry that it feels like a giant ice pick is stuck in my armpit. Moving my fingers hurts. Moving my hand hurts. Moving my elbow hurts. Everything hurts. Nothing he's doing to me is making this any better.
Then, he pulls my arm down and moves it so I'm tightly hugging myself across my middle. He tells me to keep my arm in this position, to hold it with my other arm so it doesn't slip, and to just wait. Now, again, I don't know how long I waited but it didn't feel like very long because next thing I knew, he was sitting me up and walking me across the hall and into the surgery.
They had me climb up onto this huge table in the middle of the room, and lay my right arm out to the side so it was directly horizontal with my palm facing up. Some guy got me a blanket and covered me up to my belly, then stuck a few suction cups to my chest. He asked me, in German, would I like to listen to music. I said sure. He asked if I liked a particular radio station and I told him it didn't really matter, that I like most all music. Plus, they already had it on Radio Regenbogen (Rainbow Radio) which is what my husband and I listened to in the car when we forgot our iPods, or they died on us. So this nurse guy turns up the volume on a stereo that's on the wall directly in front of me, while some other nurses and doctors start congregating around my arm.
One of the nurses pushes a cloth partition over my shoulder so I can't see my arm anymore. So, now, I'm laying on a table in my bra and jeans with a blanket that only covered my stomach, with like 10 people in the room. And I can't see my arm. I now know how it must feel to be in a C-section...
After everyone had come in, Dr. P. shows up and greets me. He asks for a scalpel and says he's going to make sure my arm is numb. I try to feel my arm, but it feels like it's only partially asleep. I can't tell, I can't move it. He tells me he's going to cut into me. Okay, I say.
Nope, definitely not numb yet. I can't really remember exactly how it felt, but I remember the pain. It was excruciating. There was pressure, and then pain. They waited about 10 minutes and then Dr. P. tried it again. Nope. Felt everything.
Okay, the block was not working. Ha! I didn't think it would. So, a nurse comes over to me and puts a mask over my face. I stare up at the ceiling while they pump the anesthetics in, and I remember falling asleep.
I assumed (no, I did not make an ass of myself) that my surgery prep would take a while. My surgery time was 1pm. My husband, being the smooth talker he can be, arranged to trade days off with someone at work so he could be free the whole day. We dropped the dog off at the neighbor's' house and headed out to the hospital.
We get to the clinic a little before we're supposed to be there, and they take me back immediately. The clinic is rather small, and the surgery for orthopedics is in the same office. It's actually quite a small clinic. When you walk in, the desk and exam rooms are off to the left, the waiting enclosure is directly ahead, and the surgery center is to the left.
I kissed my husband, told him I loved him, and went with the nurse. She took me to the locker room where she told me to take my shoes off, take my shirt off, and put my purse and backpack in the locker. Now, this room is out in the open. Nudity is absolutely no issue in Germany. Nobody would pay much attention if someone was walking around in a bustier and thong on the street, so everyone walking around and working while I was undressing was just ignoring me as if I were a light switch. No problem, I don't really care anyway because I'm in a hospital - they see worse than a 26 year old woman walking around in her bra and jeans.
So, I'm waiting, topless for the nurse to come back when the front desk nurse comes barging in to the surgery center and asks me if I checked in. I asked if she meant the front desk of the clinic. She says no, downstairs. Oh. Well. This is why being American in Germany is difficult sometimes. They assume you know how their country works when it comes to certain systems. She tells me she already sent my husband downstairs; I should go meet him in the patient center.
Okay, so I hastily put back on my shirt and shoes and run down the two flights of stairs to the lobby and into the patient center. Apparently, we were supposed to check in there, before going to the clinic. Way to go explaining this to us Atos Klinikum. So, we sign a bunch of papers, we give them our personal information, we give them our insurance letters approving surgery and hospital stay (which I go to pick how long I stayed - oddly enough!) and then they asked me what I wanted for dinner.
After a brief 10 minutes doing all this, we were set free and we ran back up two flights to the clinic. We walk in and the girls at the front desk tell me to go on back and get undressed again. So, I kiss my husband and tell him I love him again, and once again proceed to undress and shove all my crap into a locker.
An older gentleman comes up to me. He's probably 40, but he looks younger. He brings me around the corner from the locker room into a small exam room and has me lie down on the table. So, there I am, topless, lying on a table with some man who leaves me for about 5 minutes, and then returns with a bucket of water. He tells me his name, but I can't remember it. He's the Anesthesiologist that works in the hospital. He's got on this super long white coat with his name embroidered on a front pocket. He's very nice, and speaks English very well. He tells me to sit up. So why was I lying down? I don't know. Anyway, he pulls up a spinning stool and starts unpacking a bunch of things.
They are going to try and do a block on my arm. What a block is in anesthetics is the isolation of a body part or region for numbing so the patient can be awake during surgery. I'm horrified. I specifically asked to be put to sleep at my pre-screen. This is what I was talking about the other day. They didn't understand my family's history of allergies with anesthetics. I tell the anesthesiologist this, but he insists this is what Dr. P. wants to do. But, he explains, they will put me to sleep if the block doesn't work. Fine. Whatever.
So, this guy has me stick my hand in the bucket of water and pump my fist several times. Then he lifts my arm out of the water, has me hold it straight up in the air and he prods my armpit. I do this a few times, and then he has me lie down with my arm over my head. Good thing I shaved my pits before coming in that day, right?
He starts pressing and pushing around in my armpit. He tells me he's looking for the nerve that will deaden my arm. He does this for a while and I lose track of time because it's incredibly uncomfortable and all I can think about is "Stop it!" It feels like hitting your funny bone, over and over. Only in your armpit. It's an awful feeling. I'm trying not to think about it, but then I think about how I don't want to be awake for the surgery and hear the bone saw or the drilling. Or see people moving around with bloody gloves.
When he's satisfied he has my nerve in a good spot, the anesthesiologist brings out this huge needle. He tells me to hold my breath and exhale slowly while he shoots the block drugs. Simple right? Oh on. No no. This was the worst experience of my life to date. I mean, the football injury was bad. But this was pure torture. He sticks the needle in, wiggles it around quite a bit trying to hit the nerve, and then he shoots the block in. I felt like I was going to die. My eyes started leaking immediately uncontrollably, and I tried to exhale as slowly as I could without getting all snotty in the nose - which can be hard to do when you're crying.
When he's done doing this, He forces me to move my arm around. This is just as bad. That nerve is so angry that it feels like a giant ice pick is stuck in my armpit. Moving my fingers hurts. Moving my hand hurts. Moving my elbow hurts. Everything hurts. Nothing he's doing to me is making this any better.
Then, he pulls my arm down and moves it so I'm tightly hugging myself across my middle. He tells me to keep my arm in this position, to hold it with my other arm so it doesn't slip, and to just wait. Now, again, I don't know how long I waited but it didn't feel like very long because next thing I knew, he was sitting me up and walking me across the hall and into the surgery.
They had me climb up onto this huge table in the middle of the room, and lay my right arm out to the side so it was directly horizontal with my palm facing up. Some guy got me a blanket and covered me up to my belly, then stuck a few suction cups to my chest. He asked me, in German, would I like to listen to music. I said sure. He asked if I liked a particular radio station and I told him it didn't really matter, that I like most all music. Plus, they already had it on Radio Regenbogen (Rainbow Radio) which is what my husband and I listened to in the car when we forgot our iPods, or they died on us. So this nurse guy turns up the volume on a stereo that's on the wall directly in front of me, while some other nurses and doctors start congregating around my arm.
One of the nurses pushes a cloth partition over my shoulder so I can't see my arm anymore. So, now, I'm laying on a table in my bra and jeans with a blanket that only covered my stomach, with like 10 people in the room. And I can't see my arm. I now know how it must feel to be in a C-section...
After everyone had come in, Dr. P. shows up and greets me. He asks for a scalpel and says he's going to make sure my arm is numb. I try to feel my arm, but it feels like it's only partially asleep. I can't tell, I can't move it. He tells me he's going to cut into me. Okay, I say.
Nope, definitely not numb yet. I can't really remember exactly how it felt, but I remember the pain. It was excruciating. There was pressure, and then pain. They waited about 10 minutes and then Dr. P. tried it again. Nope. Felt everything.
Okay, the block was not working. Ha! I didn't think it would. So, a nurse comes over to me and puts a mask over my face. I stare up at the ceiling while they pump the anesthetics in, and I remember falling asleep.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Atos Klinikum and Dr. P.
Remember that fancy hospital I was talking about the other day? The one downtown Heidelberg that looked like some government building? This was the next stop in my journey. This was where I learned about Kienbock's disease.
So Atos Klinikum is a rather small hospital in comparison with American or university hospitals. I mean, there's this hospital called Theresiankrankenhaus (literal translation: Theresa's sick house) in downtown Mannheim that takes up a whole stinking block. Also, I'd been to the famous Army hospital in Landstuhl down by Rammstein for a GI appointment and some scope work the year before. That is also a huge hospital. You even have to go through security to get in.
I'm a little off track here. So, we park in the underground parking garage, and take the elevator to the main floor. We're looking around and this place is like a 5 star hotel with a Pharmacy that looks like it belongs in Donald Trump's house, and a restaurant with affordable and delicious local fare, and finally a gift shop and in-patient center. The floors and columns are all marble, and there's a grand foyer section where the middle of the entire building is open up to the greenhouse roofed ceiling. You can see all the way up to the top floors, and they can look down on you. The elevators are completely glass all the way around, and you can see all this artwork in between floors while you're going up ... and we did because we went to the second floor. Or, in Germany, what is called the second floor but is really the 3rd floor because they don't count the ground floor as one level, but as "Erdgeschoss", literal translation: earthen level. We learned this moving into our house because we lived in a 4 story home and had to tell them 2Nd level for the top floor, even though in America, it's the 3rd floor. Okay, again, off topic.
So we go up to the floor where the orthopedic clinic is, and we enter the office to find it's rather normal - more like an American office than the other orthopedic clinic we went to. It has a small waiting room enclosed in glass dividers with a closing door so the doctors and nurses don't get distracted. The counter is right when you walk in, so I tell them in my best German that I'm Mrs. Cushman (you always refer to yourself formally when dealing with strangers in an office setting - name tags always say Herr and Frau instead of first names). I tell them I'm to see Dr. P. They check their lists, and then have me fill out some paperwork. All over the wall when you come in, opposite the check-in desk, are these (what we Americans would think) grotesque pictures of foot and hand injuries. This office strictly deals with feet and hands. The doctors here are preeminent specialists in Germany.
We waited quite a while to see Dr. P. Mostly because the clinic was jammed with people waiting to be seen. This was obviously a very busy hospital. My husband and I always bring something to do with us, so of course I whipped out my school books and started reading, and my husband tried to sleep. When I was called back to a room, the girl asked how well I spoke German and I told her I can speak well conversationally, but not medically. She told me not to worry, everyone that works at that hospital is required to know 3 languages, 2 besides German and most all of them can speak English. This is because in Germany, unlike America, English is a requirement that is begun in the 4Th or 5Th grade and is continued, usually, for 7 to 10 years depending on the length of schooling and type of school.
So, Dr. P. waltzes in shortly after, and speaks perfect English. He's better than the immigrant doctors commonly employed by the U.S. military (often spouses of military members) who speak English every day with every patient. Anyway, he takes my disc of X-rays and prints out the pictures. He's not happy with what he sees, so he sends me downstairs to get an MRI. Now, usually, you have to schedule MRIs at a hospital. At Atos Klinikum, they do them on the spot, and results are immediate. I spent no more than 20 minutes down in the MRI. I didn't have to take any clothes, jewelry or even my belt off. Just my shoes. The woman running the MRI said she couldn't speak English, which really means she can but is fearful of her abilities and will only speak English when she completely can't understand you. So, she spoke German to me the entire time - which I'm used to but not in a medical setting. However, I've had many MRIs so I know what she's saying. Don't move. Squeeze this sensor thing in your hand if you need to stop or there is an emergency. Don't move. Don't move. I can talk to you through this headset. Don't move. You know that kind of stuff.
After 20 minutes, she sends me back upstairs to the radiology clinic to get my results. Again, I wait maybe 5 minutes and a guy comes out and takes me back to a computer. He speaks perfect English too. He shows me my results, talks to me a little bit, and then sends me back to Dr.P.
Dr. P. is floored. We have a lengthy conversation about my fracture. He tells me this is called an avascular necrosis of the lunate and a significant radial difference. Rough translation into laymen terms: There are these tiny bones in your hands. One of them in the middle of the bottom row of bones is lunar shaped, and thus called the lunate bone. This bone, which is critical to movement of the wrist, has died. There is no blood supply (hence the avascular). Because it is completely dead and fractured, it is going to, at some point, decompose and break down in to tiny bits. They cannot restore blood supply to this bone because of the extensive damage. This is an extremely uncommon disease. There isn't much known about this disease because of its rarity. Additionally, my case is even rarer than normal because I have a radial difference. This means that the radius bone (the inner arm bone) is longer than my ulna (the outer arm bone). This difference is likely what caused the bone to die as it pushed and crushed the bones in my wrist as it grew.
Dr. P. starts telling me the different stages of the disease. He has listened and exclaimed over my entire medical history with this issue since 2001. He is horrified that no one ever took an X-ray, that no one ever found out what was wrong, and that they lied to me for years and years. His expert medical opinion based on my symptoms, my X-rays and now my MRI results, and a light physical examination, is that I am in stage 3-A. There are 4 stages of the Kienbock's disease. 3-A is pretty bad, but not as bad as 3-B or 4. I'll get more into the actual disease soon, but Dr. P. says he recommends a radial shortening considering my stage and condition.
We tell him we'll think about it, and that we will call when we make our decision. I made the decision that weekend this HAD to be taken care of, but waited a full two weeks to call the office and schedule surgery.
So Atos Klinikum is a rather small hospital in comparison with American or university hospitals. I mean, there's this hospital called Theresiankrankenhaus (literal translation: Theresa's sick house) in downtown Mannheim that takes up a whole stinking block. Also, I'd been to the famous Army hospital in Landstuhl down by Rammstein for a GI appointment and some scope work the year before. That is also a huge hospital. You even have to go through security to get in.
I'm a little off track here. So, we park in the underground parking garage, and take the elevator to the main floor. We're looking around and this place is like a 5 star hotel with a Pharmacy that looks like it belongs in Donald Trump's house, and a restaurant with affordable and delicious local fare, and finally a gift shop and in-patient center. The floors and columns are all marble, and there's a grand foyer section where the middle of the entire building is open up to the greenhouse roofed ceiling. You can see all the way up to the top floors, and they can look down on you. The elevators are completely glass all the way around, and you can see all this artwork in between floors while you're going up ... and we did because we went to the second floor. Or, in Germany, what is called the second floor but is really the 3rd floor because they don't count the ground floor as one level, but as "Erdgeschoss", literal translation: earthen level. We learned this moving into our house because we lived in a 4 story home and had to tell them 2Nd level for the top floor, even though in America, it's the 3rd floor. Okay, again, off topic.
So we go up to the floor where the orthopedic clinic is, and we enter the office to find it's rather normal - more like an American office than the other orthopedic clinic we went to. It has a small waiting room enclosed in glass dividers with a closing door so the doctors and nurses don't get distracted. The counter is right when you walk in, so I tell them in my best German that I'm Mrs. Cushman (you always refer to yourself formally when dealing with strangers in an office setting - name tags always say Herr and Frau instead of first names). I tell them I'm to see Dr. P. They check their lists, and then have me fill out some paperwork. All over the wall when you come in, opposite the check-in desk, are these (what we Americans would think) grotesque pictures of foot and hand injuries. This office strictly deals with feet and hands. The doctors here are preeminent specialists in Germany.
We waited quite a while to see Dr. P. Mostly because the clinic was jammed with people waiting to be seen. This was obviously a very busy hospital. My husband and I always bring something to do with us, so of course I whipped out my school books and started reading, and my husband tried to sleep. When I was called back to a room, the girl asked how well I spoke German and I told her I can speak well conversationally, but not medically. She told me not to worry, everyone that works at that hospital is required to know 3 languages, 2 besides German and most all of them can speak English. This is because in Germany, unlike America, English is a requirement that is begun in the 4Th or 5Th grade and is continued, usually, for 7 to 10 years depending on the length of schooling and type of school.
So, Dr. P. waltzes in shortly after, and speaks perfect English. He's better than the immigrant doctors commonly employed by the U.S. military (often spouses of military members) who speak English every day with every patient. Anyway, he takes my disc of X-rays and prints out the pictures. He's not happy with what he sees, so he sends me downstairs to get an MRI. Now, usually, you have to schedule MRIs at a hospital. At Atos Klinikum, they do them on the spot, and results are immediate. I spent no more than 20 minutes down in the MRI. I didn't have to take any clothes, jewelry or even my belt off. Just my shoes. The woman running the MRI said she couldn't speak English, which really means she can but is fearful of her abilities and will only speak English when she completely can't understand you. So, she spoke German to me the entire time - which I'm used to but not in a medical setting. However, I've had many MRIs so I know what she's saying. Don't move. Squeeze this sensor thing in your hand if you need to stop or there is an emergency. Don't move. Don't move. I can talk to you through this headset. Don't move. You know that kind of stuff.
After 20 minutes, she sends me back upstairs to the radiology clinic to get my results. Again, I wait maybe 5 minutes and a guy comes out and takes me back to a computer. He speaks perfect English too. He shows me my results, talks to me a little bit, and then sends me back to Dr.P.
Dr. P. is floored. We have a lengthy conversation about my fracture. He tells me this is called an avascular necrosis of the lunate and a significant radial difference. Rough translation into laymen terms: There are these tiny bones in your hands. One of them in the middle of the bottom row of bones is lunar shaped, and thus called the lunate bone. This bone, which is critical to movement of the wrist, has died. There is no blood supply (hence the avascular). Because it is completely dead and fractured, it is going to, at some point, decompose and break down in to tiny bits. They cannot restore blood supply to this bone because of the extensive damage. This is an extremely uncommon disease. There isn't much known about this disease because of its rarity. Additionally, my case is even rarer than normal because I have a radial difference. This means that the radius bone (the inner arm bone) is longer than my ulna (the outer arm bone). This difference is likely what caused the bone to die as it pushed and crushed the bones in my wrist as it grew.
Dr. P. starts telling me the different stages of the disease. He has listened and exclaimed over my entire medical history with this issue since 2001. He is horrified that no one ever took an X-ray, that no one ever found out what was wrong, and that they lied to me for years and years. His expert medical opinion based on my symptoms, my X-rays and now my MRI results, and a light physical examination, is that I am in stage 3-A. There are 4 stages of the Kienbock's disease. 3-A is pretty bad, but not as bad as 3-B or 4. I'll get more into the actual disease soon, but Dr. P. says he recommends a radial shortening considering my stage and condition.
We tell him we'll think about it, and that we will call when we make our decision. I made the decision that weekend this HAD to be taken care of, but waited a full two weeks to call the office and schedule surgery.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Did the doctor just laugh at me?
There's this super fancy hospital in downtown Heidelberg. If you get off the Strassenbahn (street level train) at Bismarck Platz (where the pedestrian shopping zone is) and turn around, you'd never know the building was a hospital. It looks more like some sort of government building. I never really thought twice about that building, regardless of the fact that my husband and I were always down in Heidelberg doing something or other.
When I received my referral to a specialist, it was bizarre. I first had to go see a regular orthopedist in downtown Mannheim. The doctor's office wasn't like any I'd ever seen before, of course, I was in Germany not America. But, on my high school exchange program, I did visit a local doctor's clinic with my exchange partner - but that's beside the point. Anyway, I always love new experiences in Europe like learning about social customs or local traditions, etc. This was not an experience I was prepared for.
So the doctor's office (like every other office or house in a city setting in Europe) was up behind a storefront building. It was hard to find at first because there was no sign so my husband was merely going off the street addresses. We're both skeptical because once you get behind the building, you have to go up these narrow steps and then it's like you're in some one's backyard garden or something. We enter the building, and head to the second floor like the paperwork we got from our insurance told us to do. Once we get inside the actual office, it's more like ... an office. Nobody's wearing scrubs or coats. There's no check-in desk. There is however, what looks to be a closet with sliding glass doors that are obscured by its bubbled glass. My husband shrugs at me, peeks around a corner and sees a bunch of chairs and heads to do what else? To sleep of course.
I stick my head through these glass doors because really, there is no one else around in this office besides the two women chattering away and clacking at their computer keyboards. I greet them in German; ask if I am in the right place. A young girl, maybe 3 years younger than I am, confirms that I am and I tell her who I am. Then some burly German guy barges in through the doors and starts babbling about an appointment - so I know this must be check-in. It's just bizarre is all. I mean, this room is tiny to say the least, and I stood there for about 10 minutes filling out paperwork in German and answering a bunch of questions in German.
When the girl has finished my paperwork, I go to wait for my "Termin", my new word for my appointment. I apparently used the wrong word when I was making conversation but I'm used to German nuances for the most part - you know, being corrected in the middle of a sentence or conversation as if what you were trying to say depended on it - even when you don't ask or want to be corrected. Yeah.
Anyway, we must have waited almost an hour which is rather unusual for Germans who are known for their impeccable punctuality and timeliness. We are escorted to an examination room, and it too, is a closet. Literally. I mean, the one wall was full of cabinets with labels on each door and drawer, and the on the other wall was an exam table that I was sitting on - my knees were almost touching the cabinets. My husband could barely fit in this room - he's a big guy, over 6 feet tall with really broad shoulders and he was uncomfortable.
So, when the doctor comes in, he starts speaking English automatically. It annoys me when Germans do this. Their practicing English is WAY more important than your learning German. But, I suppose I can understand that medical issues and expressions are not commonly learned so perhaps it wasn't rude, just politely convenient? Anyways, it doesn't matter because I can't say "dead wrist bone" in German anyhow. So I tell the doctor what I was told by Dr. R. He doesn't understand what I am talking about, so I hand over a CD with my X-ray images and tell him that they took them just a few weeks ago.
After disappearing for a few minutes, and reappearing, he hands me the disc back and says there's nothing he can do for me. I say "what?" He laughs at me. "I don't know why your doctor sent you here."
Am I missing something? Did the doctor just laugh at me?
He explains that at his clinic, unlike in American orthopedic clinics, they merely do diagnosis, and minor treatment like casts and splints. We're talking these people only deal with regular old broken bones and sprains. Great, right? He wants to know why I am there. I tell him this is where my doctor sent me to get treatment. So, he thinks a moment and says he has a friend who is a specialist in hands who works in Heidelberg. He gives me the name of the clinic and our appointment is over.
After a rather harrowing experience waiting to get clearance to go see this specialist in Heidelberg, we are happy and have an appointment for the fall of 2009. I spent hours on the hospital's website reading about the doctors, the clinics, the famous patients from all over the world. Steffi Graf was a patient there. Rich business men from Russia come all the way to Germany to be seen by these doctors. I haven't even been to this place, don't even realize I've seen this place, and I like it tremendously. Little did I know it's that big building downtown in an area I know well and love.
When I received my referral to a specialist, it was bizarre. I first had to go see a regular orthopedist in downtown Mannheim. The doctor's office wasn't like any I'd ever seen before, of course, I was in Germany not America. But, on my high school exchange program, I did visit a local doctor's clinic with my exchange partner - but that's beside the point. Anyway, I always love new experiences in Europe like learning about social customs or local traditions, etc. This was not an experience I was prepared for.
So the doctor's office (like every other office or house in a city setting in Europe) was up behind a storefront building. It was hard to find at first because there was no sign so my husband was merely going off the street addresses. We're both skeptical because once you get behind the building, you have to go up these narrow steps and then it's like you're in some one's backyard garden or something. We enter the building, and head to the second floor like the paperwork we got from our insurance told us to do. Once we get inside the actual office, it's more like ... an office. Nobody's wearing scrubs or coats. There's no check-in desk. There is however, what looks to be a closet with sliding glass doors that are obscured by its bubbled glass. My husband shrugs at me, peeks around a corner and sees a bunch of chairs and heads to do what else? To sleep of course.
I stick my head through these glass doors because really, there is no one else around in this office besides the two women chattering away and clacking at their computer keyboards. I greet them in German; ask if I am in the right place. A young girl, maybe 3 years younger than I am, confirms that I am and I tell her who I am. Then some burly German guy barges in through the doors and starts babbling about an appointment - so I know this must be check-in. It's just bizarre is all. I mean, this room is tiny to say the least, and I stood there for about 10 minutes filling out paperwork in German and answering a bunch of questions in German.
When the girl has finished my paperwork, I go to wait for my "Termin", my new word for my appointment. I apparently used the wrong word when I was making conversation but I'm used to German nuances for the most part - you know, being corrected in the middle of a sentence or conversation as if what you were trying to say depended on it - even when you don't ask or want to be corrected. Yeah.
Anyway, we must have waited almost an hour which is rather unusual for Germans who are known for their impeccable punctuality and timeliness. We are escorted to an examination room, and it too, is a closet. Literally. I mean, the one wall was full of cabinets with labels on each door and drawer, and the on the other wall was an exam table that I was sitting on - my knees were almost touching the cabinets. My husband could barely fit in this room - he's a big guy, over 6 feet tall with really broad shoulders and he was uncomfortable.
So, when the doctor comes in, he starts speaking English automatically. It annoys me when Germans do this. Their practicing English is WAY more important than your learning German. But, I suppose I can understand that medical issues and expressions are not commonly learned so perhaps it wasn't rude, just politely convenient? Anyways, it doesn't matter because I can't say "dead wrist bone" in German anyhow. So I tell the doctor what I was told by Dr. R. He doesn't understand what I am talking about, so I hand over a CD with my X-ray images and tell him that they took them just a few weeks ago.
After disappearing for a few minutes, and reappearing, he hands me the disc back and says there's nothing he can do for me. I say "what?" He laughs at me. "I don't know why your doctor sent you here."
Am I missing something? Did the doctor just laugh at me?
He explains that at his clinic, unlike in American orthopedic clinics, they merely do diagnosis, and minor treatment like casts and splints. We're talking these people only deal with regular old broken bones and sprains. Great, right? He wants to know why I am there. I tell him this is where my doctor sent me to get treatment. So, he thinks a moment and says he has a friend who is a specialist in hands who works in Heidelberg. He gives me the name of the clinic and our appointment is over.
After a rather harrowing experience waiting to get clearance to go see this specialist in Heidelberg, we are happy and have an appointment for the fall of 2009. I spent hours on the hospital's website reading about the doctors, the clinics, the famous patients from all over the world. Steffi Graf was a patient there. Rich business men from Russia come all the way to Germany to be seen by these doctors. I haven't even been to this place, don't even realize I've seen this place, and I like it tremendously. Little did I know it's that big building downtown in an area I know well and love.
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