So here is the story: I was walking at the gym last Tuesday, tripped, and fell heavily onto my right forearm. Which felt really painful, and then after the initial really painful part, really weird (and wouldn’t bend or rotate). So my walking buddy took me to the ER and after a couple of hours, an X-ray, and some good pain drugs, I was diagnosed with a fractured radial head. To be more specific, the end of the radius (one of the two bones in my forearm) has a chip out of it, which is now floating around in my elbow. The orthopedic surgeon was a bit puzzled as to how I managed to do that – it’s apparently not the sort of way radial heads normally get fractured.
Since there are lots of important nerves and blood vessels that go through the elbow, this is not an ideal situation. Also, I still can’t fully straighten my arm (though as you can all see, I have my typing back. Temporarily…more on that in a minute), I have next to no muscle strength in that arm, and no rotation. I also have no endurance to speak of – just holding my arm in place to type these two paragraphs has tired it out noticeably.
So I go in for elbow surgery tomorrow, to remove the bone chip. I anticipate that it will be at least a week after that before I can really do much at all, let alone do much with my right hand. (Yes, that’s my dominant hand.) When I do start getting it back…well, I currently have five sets of page proofs to review before the end of the month and progress to be made on The New Thing. So it will be at least a couple of weeks, I think, before I can get back to blogging. Which is really frustrating, but that’s life.
Thank you all for your good wishes, and I hope you’ll all check back in a few weeks. If nothing else, I’ll try to post another update on how things are going.
Yikes! I’ll be praying for you.
How awful! I hope surgery goes smoothly, and you’re back on your fingertips soon.
Ack! That sounds awful. 🙁 I hope you feel better soon, and take all the time you need to feel better.
That is pretty scary. I hope all goes well tomorrow and that you have a speedy and comfortable recovery.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery, with nothing worse to deal with than boredom. Of course you, being an excellently creative writer, had to come up with a new way to handle the broken radial head plot line.
Sending best of vibes your way – may you heal quickly and have the best of physios.
Ouch! (And of course, it’s your dominant hand. 😛 )
Heal well, write good. We’ll be here when you’re ready.
(Hrmph, WordPress does not understand smilie conventions. That was supposed to be the sticky-out tongue one, going “Thbtbtbt!” at fate.)
So I did my two miles on the treadmill, got off, and read your post. Ouch! Wishing you lots of luck and a fast recovery.
Hope your surgery goes well!
Yikes, that’s terrible! I hope the surgery goes well. I know a little bit of what you’re going through – I fell off a horse in September, tearing a ligament in my left and dominant wrist. After two months of splinting and resting it we got an MRI done and found out about the tear, and I went in for surgery the next day. It was absolutely miserable (and I couldn’t type AT ALL with that hand), but I recovered. Two months out from surgery I’m back to near-normal functionality, even if my wrist/hand is still recovering full strength and mobility. When you read this you’ll probably be in the “this is absolutely horrible” phase. I just want to offer a word of encouragement: it will get better! You will be able to type again!
I’ll be thinking about you, I hope the surgery goes well tomorrow and that you recover quickly.
Hope the surgery went smoothly and best wishes for a swift recovery.
Best of success on the recovery. Hope it doesn’t hurt too much.
Ouch! I am so sorry to hear that. Will be praying for a speedy recovery for you. Thanks for all the writing advice, I’ve been lurking for a while, but a bit too timid to say, “Hi.” 🙂
This proves conclusively that exercise is bad and that fitness equipment is just trying to kill us 😀
Hope your surgery goes well 🙂
When I fractured my (also right) radial head, I was glad it wasn’t a Type 2 fracture. I guess you can be glad yours isn’t a Type 3! (Ouch.)
Green bone can be knapped like flint, conchoidal fracture; hit it just wrong and flakes will spall. I’m sorry you managed to do something quite that novel to your elbow….
Hope surgery goes splendidly, and recovery is quick and complete.
(If the medical types want you to take (extra) calcium, remember to take magnesium with it.)
I fractured the distal end of my radius about six years ago … knocked completely off, pushed forward and down. (I now have a plate in it with twelve screws in it.) That was not so bad, but we had a con coming up and because my daughter and son-in-law were both working at it, I had to take care of the two-month-old baby. Have you ever tried to diaper an infant with one hand????
Patricia, take care of yourself. As I said before, we can wait.
I hope your surgery went well and that your recovery does, too.
Uff da.
I hope it heals quickly!
So sorry to hear this! Have you tried Dragon voice recognition software? I fiddled around with it and found it okay – I think it would have been better if I had done more to “teach” it. One useful thing is that it’s not just for dictation, but also for commands. I doubt you would be as productive as when you type, but it might bridge the gap while you recover. And good luck with that!
I love your blog, so I hope (very egoistically) that you will soon be back and in good health 🙂 A friend of mine fractured her elbow in the beginning of December, and she’s almost recovered by now. Healing must take as long as it takes, and don’t hurry it. Good luck.