Two steps forward, one step back

SO, I met with my surgeon yesterday in hopes that a) it would be my last visit with him until I needed to set up my second surgery to remove the hardware, and b) to get the go ahead to remove the immobilizer brace that has become a part of me over the last six weeks. I also had a minor detail that I knew he could fix...

OVER THE PAST THREE WEEKS, since I last saw him, I had a tiny bump on my scar. I didn't think too much of it because it wasn't discolored, nor did it hurt. Well, the bump softened over the first week when I showered and on the second week a tiny little thread poked through. Again I didn't think too much of it because he did say that I had internal stitches and that they would most-likely dissolve as I shower. Well, as the next week and a half went on the string was slowly being pushed up and now I had the base of the string which was a knot at the surface. My husband and I thought my body would just push it out on it's own as that's what my body had already been doing. However the last three days it felt completely solid to the touch.

ANYWAY, I was excited to see the doc so he could snip it and remove the string. Turns out that the string wasn't a stitch. During the surgery the doc color codes his threads. This was a green thread so he knew at a glance what this string was. This is the string he used to wrap around both the bone and the plate to hold it in place while he put in the screws, as well as to keep in in place while my bone heals with the screws. Unfortunately for me the knot which used to be under the bone had shifted to the top of the bone/plate. Over three weeks the knot "eroded"
(the Doc's exact word) my skin, so when he removed the knot he said he could see down the hole to the hardware.

GROSS!!! I didn't take a look for myself, because thats not something one would want to see. He bandaged me up, so I now look like I just had surgery again. PLUS, I have to see him on Sunday because he thinks he'll have to give my hole a little slice and then stitch me up again to close it properly. Plus he put me on antibiotics since I have a hole in me he doesn't want it to get infected. (The antibiotics give me a terrific headache and I have to take them every 6 hours for the next 6 days! So its going to be a long week for me.)

ON TOP OF WHICH, he doesn't like how my skin is stretched out over the plate. My plate has lifted slightly so we have to watch it. He also said that because I'm so thin framed, its a poor combination to add hardware to an area where there is no extra tissue/fat/muscle. So where he first said that I could wait up to three years for my second surgery, he know feels that the plate should come out as soon as possible which means nine months from the surgery date. So looks like I'll be having surgery in June of '09.

HE ALSO SAID that even though I've been so good with my immobilizer brace, and that he had wanted me to start physical therapy on Monday, he says that my skin can't take the movement yet, along with the hole in my shoulder. So still no movement of the arm... BUT I did get an up grade of a sling. I'll still wear the brace to sleep because I don't want to move my arm by accident in my sleep, but by day I can wear the sling. However, I still can't wear cute clothes. I have about six stretchy t-shirts that I wear, because I have to step into them like a skirt and then pull them up with my one good arm, since I can't lift my arm, or move my shoulder up and/or back to fit it in a shirt that goes over my head.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE. So there really hasn't been much change. I get to go "under the knife" tomorrow for my "slice and stitch". And I'll probably still have to make trips to his office over the next few weeks/months. *sigh* Healing takes time... A LOT OF TIME!