A Journey in Pictures

I realized that I suddenly stopped blogging about my hand.  Probably because I got tired of telling the story...and because you all know how I'm doing since I've seen you all throughout the injury and healing process.  For whatever reason, I felt I needed to do a final blog about it.  Consider it a 'bloggy' catharsis of sorts.

Things started off like this:

This was a few days after my accident.  Look at that swelling!  my fingers looked like Vienna Sausages.

Here's a comparison to my left hand.  BIG difference.  And it was soooo extraordinarily painful.  The pain kept me up for four days...no sleep.  My fingers and most of my palm were completely numb, but I could still feel PAIN!  Once I was able to sleep for a few hours at a time, the tingling was so annoying...almost unbearable.  That and the pain would wake me up every few hours, and only a pain killer would help me get back to sleep.  The first night I slept a full night was actually 3 weeks later in Tampa when I was at the Music Educators Conference.  (Remember that, Michelle?) That was also when I stopped taking the prescription pain killers.

Look at the difference just two weeks of therapy made!  Movement helped break up the pool of blood that was deep in the tissues of my palm and helped my body absorb all of the fluid that was just sitting there.  (Isn't it incredible how our bodies heal themselves?)  Let me tell you how painful therapy was those first few weeks!!!!  The first day my therapist bent my fingrers backwards and forced me to make a fist.  My tendons and ligaments hadn't moved in 3 weeks and it made me howl when he stretched them out.  We moved slowly at first, and I practiced at home by picking up little pieces of paper and empty plastic water bottles.  I was a good little patient and tortured myself at home with the exercies just like my therapist said.  My husband said I was a trooper.  Before surgery I was pushing buttons on my keyboard and trying to push the mouse button, too.  That required monumental force.  The first time I picked up my cell phone it felt so heavy!  Luckily, there was no injury to my fingers--they were just really, really, really stiff.  This photo was taken the morning of my surgery just before going in.  I ended up wearing a splint until the first week of April. 

Here is my incision after surgery.  My palm was soooo swollen.  I had yellow and green bruising down my wrist.  My doctor told me that was normal, and my body was now healing from TWO injuries--my accident and his surgery.  When the anesthisia wore off, it felt like my skin was ripping.  But luckily that lasted for only a few days.  The progress I made after surgery was great.  Therapy still focused on the flexibility of my fingers.  Moving my wrist wasn't allowed until a few weeks after surgery, and then it was only 'active range of motion.' 

Here's what I looked like when the stitches came out a week after surgery.  Three months after the injury (the time carpal fractures take to heal), my therapist said he got the OK from my doctor to "go gang busters" on my wrist.  That involved stretching my wrist backwards and forwards to increase my range of motion.  That hurt.  A lot.  It made me squirm and sweat.  But I never cried...in public.  One of the doctors said I was pretty good...he's seen grown men sit there and cry.  I digress...I'd also have to hold weights in my hand and flex my wrist up and down.  I started using hand grips and silly putty to strengthen my grip.  That went on until early May.  Then I graduated from therapy and saw my doctor for the last time in mid-May.  He gave me a clean bill of health.  I am able to flex and extend my wrist over 50 degrees (40 degrees is considered functional).  However, I can flex/extend my left hand over 70 degrees.  I want that back...but the doctor said once you fracture a bone, it's never really the same.  He also told me I'm a 'robust healer' and my body heals quickly.  I formed scar tissue very quickly after surgery, and he said if I ever have surgery again I need to move very soon after to prevent the scarring from getting too hard. 

Here I am today.  Can you see the scar?

It looks pretty good!  I was lucky to have a great surgeon.  I have to continue strengthening my grip (I only have 15 pounds of grip stength, which is very wussy) and increasing my wrist's flexion/extension.  The swelling may take up to a full year to go away.  My thearpist recommended that I buy a hand gripper to help with all of that.  

So I bought a grip ball.  Can't you see my muscles rippling?  Grrrrrrr....

 

...and I bought a hand grip.  Wow!  Check that guy out!  Who knew using a hand grip would make you look like that?

Anyway, I'm really glad to do all the little things I couldn't do for a few months.  What was most important to me was to play flute again.  It wasn't until April that my fingers could really move well enough to play again.  I just jumped right back into it.  Just like riding a bike...you may be wobbly at first but you never really forget.  I can type, and write (SOOOO glad I don't have chicken scratch hand writing anymore), and pick up utensils and eat like a regular person, and hold a baton and conduct properly, and pick up my hair, and snap on my own bra, and tie my shoes, and brush my teeth...and all those other little things you don't even think about when you're OK.  AND...I can feel!  My feeling started coming back little by little as my poor crushed nerve healed.  

I like having my hand back! Thanks, everyone for your support and prayers!

The first time I've cooked in...........ages.

My husband certainly didn't marry me for my cooking.  There was no 'getting-to-his-heart-through-his-stomach' in this love story.  And Amen for that.  Or it might not have worked out.

As a girl, I watched my mom cook us home-made meals every night.  I learned how to make a few simple things, and helped her here and there.  So I'm not completely useless in the kitchen.  And I don't burn everything I make, either.  Actually, I very rarely burn food.  Cooking was just never something I was really that interested in.  Besides, my job (as my parents told me from a very early age) was to be a good student, go to college, get a degree and hang it on my wall, start a career doing whatever I wanted to do, and make my own money; and if a man ever mistreated me or told me what I could or could not do, I could tell him to stick it where the sun don't shine and I would be able to move on and take care of myself.  Well...my mom added the last part about the man.  Although my dad certainly agreed.  We (my sister and I) were raised to be strong-willed women with minds of our own, and my mom taught us to one day marry men that would appreciate and respect that.  College was not an option.  We were going.  And we'd better get good grades, too.  I think my mom was trying to get us away from that traditional role of the Cuban housewife that she had grown up around.  Women of her mother's generation just didn't have many other choices.  As the oldest daughter of 10, my mom's mom was pulled out of school when she was still a young girl to help raise her brothers and sisters.  She would cry and beg her parents to let her go to school.  She really wanted that opportunity which she was denied, and I guess she passed that sentiment along to my mom.  I guess that's where my mom was coming from.  I suppose it's because parents always want more for their children.  School was my first and primary job.  Around the house, we had to help my mom with chores and keep our rooms clean.  But only if we were done with our homework first.  By the time I was in high school, my room would get messy and my mom rarely asked me for help around the house since I was so busy with band and honor societies and concerts and college applications.  No time for cooking lessons.

I love my refrigerator magnets:

My mom printed something for herself a while back and put it on the fridge.  It reads:  "The maid is off today. If you want something, get it yourself."

I think this sums it up pretty well:  When I was going off to college, my mom asked me if I wanted her to buy me an iron.  I said "what for?"

Don't get me wrong--I do like cooking.  Sometimes.  Before we got married, Steve and I would talk about how nice it would be to have our own place and cook in our own kitchen.  We did pretty well the first year--we cooked at home most of the week.  Then we settled into life and work and got tired and lazy.  Home cooked meals became less frequent.  But, every now and then, I get inspired to experiment in the kitchen.  Mostly in the summer months, when school is out and I get bored.  Sometimes good things come of my boredom.  Like a clean house.  It has been really messy for the last few months.  Things piled up after my accident and hand injury, and once I got better I got busy with work and the piles just kept getting more mountainous.  Now that it's officially summer break, I've already made some progress.  (I'm the neat freak and organizer in the relationship, although you wouldn't be able to tell that by the look of my spare bedroom).  But, I digress.  The last time I cooked something besides pasta was months ago.  Steve likes to cook (another Amen) and frequent restaurants with me, so that's why we haven't starved.  I borrowed a book of chicken recipes from my sister (although she says 'stole' since I didn't ask for permission, a minor detail between sisters) and found an easy dinner idea I wanted to try:  honey garlic chicken wings.  Since I don't own a BBQ grill, I changed the recipe to suit my available utensils (and limited cooking skills) to a honey garlic chicken stir-fry with mushrooms and steamed rice. 

Honey Garlic Chicken with Portobello Mushrooms
Ingredients (makes two servings)
2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup steak sauce (I used A1 thick and hearty)
1/8 cup honey
1 garlic clove, minced
Baby portobello mushrooms
1 cup rice

How-to

1. Start cooking the rice
2. Slice two chicken breasts into small cubes
3.  Begin to heat some olive oil and minced garlic in a pan over medium-high heat
4. Mix the steak sauce, honey, and minced garlic in a bowl.
5. Once the pan is hot, add the chicken and mushrooms.
6. Once chicken and mushrooms are cooked, add the sauce and let simmer for a few minutes.
7. Serve with steamed rice and enjoy!

Nothing like the smell of olive oil and garlic sauteing in a pan...

                                  

Saucy!

 

Simmer....

 Eat up!

Not too bad for a self-proclaimed 'domestically challenged' woman.


Next time, I will return to my roots:  Mojo chicken with tostones and white rice!

How to Drive in Miami

1.  Get yourself a good car insurance policy. 
2.  Learn to curse in Spanish (I can help with that)
3  Avoid driving in Hialeah at all costs. 
4.  Assume all the other drivers around you are one or more of the following:
      a) blind
      b) complete idiots
      c) reckless drivers
      d) not paying any attention whatsoever
      e) asleep
      f) not even licensed drivers
5.  Grow a second pair of eyeballs so you can see said drivers coming at you from every direction at a million miles an hour and while breaking every traffic law known to man kind. 
6.  Assume at least three people will run every red light.
7.  Realize that most Miami drivers think speed limits are merely "suggestions," stop signs are really "pause" signs, and merge lanes are opportunities to speed up and pass everyone.
8.  Assume that there will be 30 accidents on the highway while you are on your way to work.  Plan accordingly.
9.  Realize that in Miami, rush "hour" is from 7 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday. 
10.  Be one of the few drivers in Miami that learns to use those complicated devices in cars known as turn signals...and brakes.
11.  Practice deep breathing exercises.  Pray.

OR...just stay home. 

Seriously...be safe, wear your seat belts and may the force be with you!

What I Got

After a referral from my primary care doctor, I went to an orthopedic surgeon almost three weeks ago.  He did yet another round of x-rays at his office and said:  "It looks like you fractured your hamate bone."  I got this sinking feeling in my chest..."There's a lot of other things going on here.  The stiffness in your fingers and swelling really concerns me...I'm going to refer you to the University of Miami."  He called another doctor on his cell phone and got me an appointment for the very next morning.  He told me that I was getting VIP treatment and going to see a great hand surgeon at the best hand clinic in town.  This did little to calm me.  The sense of urgency in which he got me that appointment had already gotten me nervous.

Fa-la-la-la-shopping spree

I discovered that the late evening--right before the stores close--is the best time to go shopping.  A few years ago, Steve and I did our holiday shopping between 9:00--11:00 PM at Dadeland Mall.  It was great--no crowds, no crazy parking lots.

We just got back from The Falls about an hour ago, which was practically empty.  It was so different from the massive and sometimes rude crowds at Dolphin Mall.  In less than two hours, I bought gifts for three people, spent a good deal of that time leisurely browsing at my favorite stores, and got coffee at Starbucks.  The best part was all of the stores I shopped at in The Falls can also be found at Dolphin Mall, so I know I didn't spend a penny more than I would have elsewhere.  (The Falls has a reputation for being a pricier mall, but it all depends on where and how you shop!)