A Peek Inside a Covid19 Hospital

[BoSoxGal]

They did that to me for one of the surgeries on my finger after I crushed it. DO NOT TRY LIFTING THAT ARM WHILE LYING DOWN! I popped myself in the nose pretty good.

Just gave myself a fat lip shifting my arm in bed - trying to keep wrist elevated, it rolled off the pillow and I miscalculated grabbing it back, even with using my good hand!

Just starting to get wiggling and tingling back in my fingers this morning at 8am, about 22 hours after the block. I’m sure it was the right choice for pain management and to minimize the general anesthetic required - it was my fastest recovery ever, a bit wobbly for the first two hours but no somnolence. However, this sensation of my arm being disconnected from my body and brain has been deeply unsettling; I would reposition the arm periodically and have a weird lingering sense that it was still in the last place it was positioned - like without nerve sensation the only concept of my arm was where my eyes last saw it or the memory of that if I wasn’t looking right at it.

I have had the smallest peek into paralysis without sensation - it will certainly add another layer to my compassion for clients I work with who are paralyzed without sensation.

Hopefully by tonight I’ll have motor control of my arm again. My new splint/wrap only extends 3/4 up my forearm, a vast improvement on the one that extended past my elbow - this is so much more comfortable and easier to elevate and navigate with. Hopefully I’ll be driving again in a few weeks and incorporating some kayak paddling into my rehab by July at latest - paddling a few times a week this spring with my friend on Cape was my lockdown exercise plan, and I’m bummed to be missing spring on the water - but summer will be nice, too. There hopefully won’t be the same traffic to the Cape this summer - a pandemic upside.

So the next few days are pain management and constipation mitigation. Joy! I’m close to the end of season one of St. Elsewhere - a lovely dose of nostalgia.

Meanwhile I guess we are fast approaching 100,000 dead and it’s not even June.

[BoSoxGal]

Fuck the nerve block has now worn off and my plan to use Percocet minimally to limit digestive system upset is out the window.

The pain of orthopedic surgery involving screws drilled into bone cannot be overstated.

[TPFKA@W]

Fuck the nerve block has now worn off and my plan to use Percocet minimally to limit digestive system upset is out the window.

The pain of orthopedic surgery involving screws drilled into bone cannot be overstated.

Haha, not at you, remembering 2008, I had a nerve block for elbow surgery. Similar reaction before and after the nerve block wore off. Enjoy your percocet, it’s your friend.

[RayThom]

Try mixing some aspirin powder with moisturizing cream and rub it onto the skin as close to the painful area as possible.

This works fairly well for me when my foot neuropathy gets painful.

[Bicycle Bill]

Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for pain, but I don't recall pounding the percocet when I had my surgery after a bike crash in 2006.  There's still a metal plate and about a dozen screws in my right shoulder holding the knob of the upper humerus together and reattaching it to the shaft.

They did knock me out completely for the surgery itself, and once I came out of it I was on a morphine drip that had a manual boost I could push (and I admit, I did a couple of times) during the three days I was in the hospital following the surgery before they turned me loose, but I don't recall being prescribed anything more potent than OTC extra-strength acetaminophen once I was recuperating back home.

I started light PT while I was still in the hospital beginning the day after the surgery, and followed that up with out-patient PT once I was released.  In fact, it was only about six weeks later that I was OK'd to go back to work, although on light duty with a 'heavy lifting' restriction (I was working in a warehouse/production facility at that time).  Today, I have almost all my range of motion back, and about the only reminder I have of this experience is the slowly-fading scar at the top of my right arm

Hang in there, BSG.  If I could survive and thrive after that, so can you.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

Try mixing some aspirin powder with moisturizing cream and rub it onto the skin as close to the painful area as possible.

This works fairly well for me when my foot neuropathy gets painful.

I actually have a pain cream I use on my arthritic hands and on my foot where I have residual pain from last winter’s Jones fracture - it’s pretty effective stuff, based on reprogramming the pain response in nerves afflicted by chronic pain. I’d recommend you try it for your neuropathy. Here’s a link: https://tedsbrainscience.com/products/pain-cream

Unfortunately at present I can’t use any type of pain cream on the wrist because it’s covered by the post-op splint/wrap. Apparently if all progresses well I should be in a removable/adjustable brace in a couple of weeks and I will definitely put the Ted’s to the test then.

[Bicycle Bill]

-"BB"-