so, i went in for another follow-up w the ortho doc on thursday. first thing they did was sit me in the cast room and break out the saw! huzzah! free at last!
once the fiberglass parasite was cracked apart, they let me scrub off some of the primordial ooze that had developed on my arm, but i couldn't do too much right then, as i had to go get my appendage x-rayed. once i was done in radiology, i went back to the doc's office and a very excellent assistant sat me down at a computer monitor to show me the x-rays, and... she didn't seem all that excited. i'd seen her on my earlier visits and she's been a great and sympathetic booster/cheerleader and friendly advisor, so, i had a hint this wasn't going to go as well as i'd hoped...
sure enough, when the doc came in to review the x-rays with me, he explained that there's not as much of a callus/new bone growth as he'd like in order to feel safe about having my arm unprotected and unrestricted. and so, the forearm would have to be en-casted once more. frickin frackin boo, dammit!
i kinda knew i was pushing my luck, hoping that i'd be healed up after six weeks in casts. no mutant healing factor for me. bleah. the doc prescribed another short cast for another three weeks, til the end of september... frack. that's just about the last nail in the coffin of summer, argh!
i told him i'd been suckin down calcium and vitamin d supplements in an effort to help healing, and asked if there was anything else i could do. he explained that it sounds unfair and ironic, but if i'd had a more severe fracture, one that displaced the broken bone, the healing process would likely be faster than it currently is. greater trauma and shock send the body's regenerative and healing capabilities into overdrive.
apparently, the body doesn't seem to recognize the mental anguish due to lack of volleyball as trauma. stupid body.
well, the doc let me have another 10 minutes or so of freedom to give my withered limb a decent scrubbing before encasing it for another three weeks. i managed to dislodge all of the visible colonies of whatnot (i think one had reached its industrial revolution, while the others were still mostly agrarian societies), and soap-and-watered off all the scales, until i was pretty much down to all new chicken skin, exposed to daylight for fleeting minutes before being sentenced once again to darkness.
i'm definitely gonna need some kind of rehab once i'm finally well-healed (not well-heeled, still waitin on my lottery numbers for that). my arm in general is weak from almost two months of slackin, and my wrist and hand are way resistant to motion. with the cast off, i could make a clenched fist again and it was neither easy nor comfortable. and bending my wrist more than 15-20 degrees in any direction took a lot of effort, effort rewarded with pain.
i see a renaissance of bump setting in my future.
i didn't get a choice of color for the cast this time around, so i'm sporting the standard off-white fiberglass model. y'know, i'd just about gotten used to the level of itching with the previous spinachy short cast (for those who hadn't seen it, it was green... i mean, the color of the actual fiberglass was green, not that the cast turned green : P). or maybe it was that i was getting "short" that made it more acceptable over the last week or so. now, tho, with a newly wrapped cast covering my fresh new epidermis, well, i'm not looking forward to going thru the itch cycle again. it's made me surly. or rather, surlier. frickin frackin sazzafrazzzin...
it's only been a few days, but so far it hasn't been too bad. perhaps i *am* used to it and able to ignore it or distract myself more easily, and maybe it won't get as ugly with the lowering temps of september. sweat is definitely not a helper.
the extended sentence does suck, tho. i was quietly hoping that this visit would be the end of the cast. i had plans... big plans... i mean, i was gonna cut my hair (i've been buzzing my own cuts since january, and after two months without a shear, it's so very unruly)... i was gonna fold my laundry... i was gonna fry something, probably bacon, safely, with both hands free... i was gonna drive... i was gonna start putting things in my right pockets again...
i was gonna vacuum!
what? just you try it on wood floors with carpets, rugs, and furniture using your opposite hand! just you try...
*sigh* big plans...
but, y'know, basically, really i'm fine. the cast is irritating, physically and metaphysically, but my arm's definitely feeling better now than six weeks ago. lucky for me, my sister and rowan are around and patient enough to help when needed. i like pizza. i'm back at work at the office, altho still not exactly at top-speed. coming back to vball is gonna be rough and not pretty, but i'm looking forward to it. and without volleyball available to me, i'm able to indulge my other vice (which just happens to be a great air-conditioned distraction from itching), hittin the movies. yeah, you probably didn't know that i like going to the movies, did you? it's not like a secret or anything, i just don't talk about it very much.
heh.
keep on keepin on~
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