Oh happy day!

Yesterday I went to the hospital for surgery. My plastic surgeon met with me before I went into the OR and shared the new game plan! (To read about the old game plan look at the post titled "Surgery Happy") The new game plan was to scrub the exposed plate, then take human tissue (grown in a "pea-tree" dish, I love science) and slide the tissue in the hole to tuck it under my skin to give me added thickness and then stitch the hole closed on the existing scar from my first surgery. So no new scars for Taryn!!! Wahoo!

They put me in a "twilight" state so I was breathing on my own, and I think I could interact with the doctors, but once it was over I didn't remember a thing. I spent 20 minutes in the recovery room (as opposed to three hours like last time) and was ready to go home 40 minutes after that. No dizziness, no nausea, and no discomfort. I was able to go home, eat dinner, and relax. Last night I had the best sleep that I've gotten since the accident back in August!

Even today I'm not in any pain. To be honest it feels like someone is just pinching my skin and they’re simply not letting go. Its not bad at all. I meet with my plastic surgeon tomorrow, and I see my orthopedic surgeon on the 25th and then I'll know how much time I have before my third and final surgery to remove the plate!

But for now, I'm happy that I'm fixed! I feel great! And I'm glad that I can look at this through a positive light again!!! My positive attitude has returned!!! Life is great once again!

FYI (surgery update)

I went to the hospital today for all my blood work and surgical prep stuff. I'm on the schedule for surgery at Saint Joseph's hospital tomorrow at 1 p.m. I'll go in at 11 a.m. and hopefully be home around dinner time.

Send good vibes please!

Things I've mastered with just my left hand:

• Taking a one armed shower
• Washing my hair
  
• Brushing my teeth
• Eating a bowl of cereal
• Typing
• Getting dressed
• Emptying the dishwasher
• Folding laundry
• Using a computer mouse
  
• Putting the water jug back in the fridge (its a process: open the fridge door, hold the door open with your foot, spin around and reach for the counter, grab the water jug, place in fridge, close fridge door)
• Putting on shoes (Ha, do clogs count?)
• Making the bed
• Using the remote control
• Using toilet paper ('nough said)
• Opening and closing the passenger car door (think about it, you always use your right hand to close the passenger door, so left hand is pretty tough)
• Using my "straightner" (flat iron) on my hair.
• Updating my blog
  

Surgery Happy

I met with a plastic surgeon today, and it wasn't the news I was hoping to hear. The only way to seal up the hole in my shoulder is another surgery. The plastic surgeon feels that the safest way to deal with this would be to cut a flap of skin in the shape of an L, either below the scar (from my chest) or from above the scar (from my trap) and flip it up/down onto the open area. This will most likely happen on Tuesday of next week.

I have to admit that I'm really starting to wear thin on my positive nature. I know that there is nothing I can do, and that it could have been much worse but still, I would like to get my life back, and it just seems that rather than moving ahead I'm at a total stand still... if not even a step backward. I'm just frustrated, I know, but I really can not wait till this has become a distant memory.

How ghetto are we?!?

Last night Christian couldn't take it any more. Our television, which we found on the curb waiting for trash pick up, finally kicked the bucket after giving us three years of watching pleasure. Sure, we never had a remote for our good old tv, so to turn it on or off you had to get up and walk across the room, or to adjust the volume you had to get up and walk across the room. But hey, in this day and age we could all use a little extra exercise.

Anyway, over the last two weeks our tv showed signs of a fading glory. It started small one morning where we notice that we could no longer see the extreme top and bottom of the screen. (A terrible thing when watching football and checking on scores that are printed at the top of the screen) Then as days went by the screen started to stretch out even more, which again made watching tv a little difficult because now everyone looked like they were paper thin and 12 feet tall.

So last night after Christian attempted to watch his football on the stretched out block that we lovingly called our tv, he stood up, went down to the basement and got my first tv which is maybe only 14" at most and hooked it up so he could watch his Giants win against the Cowboys. Polls are now open to guess how long this setup will stay in place until Christian buys a new television.

And a step sideways

Okay, the latest in the clavicle saga. I met with my surgeon today with the notion that he was going to stitch up the hole in my scar. Once the bandage came off the Doc took a solid look and told me that I now need to see a plastic surgeon. Humf!

He's worried about the tightness/thinness of my skin stretched out over the plate. He didn't want to put a stitch in because it would stretch the skin even more and honestly he feels its stretched to the max and will tear.

He's also worried at the thinness because he thinks that the plate is slowly eroding my skin, just as the knot did a week ago! So he is sending me to a specialist (the plastic surgeon) because he deals with bones and is at a loss what should be done. He said that yesterday he contacted several of his fellow surgeons to ask them what they would recommend and they all said, "send her to a plastic surgeon."

So off I go to meet with a new doctor. I still have a hole in my shoulder. I still can't move my arm. And I'm still trying to keep a positive outlook on this but my strength is sure being tested! But for now, it is what it is, and I'm doing my best to deal with it one day at a time.

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!