Recovery day 23 – the false dawn

All my previous optimism that this bone will fix itself can be put aside now. Last night’s doctor’s appointment revealed that the pieces have moved out of alignment and will need to be put back with plates and screws. Actually, that’s not strictly true. I could let it join back together as is, but I’ll have an awkward deformed arm if I do. The recommendation was to surgically fix it, which I took up after considering the doctor’s information as follows:

The advantages:

• The bone fixed rigidly in exact correct position, virtually guaranteeing normal function and appearance, which would otherwise have a low chance of happening, and avoidance of a permanent deformity.
• An immediate rigid fix, meaning regaining of some use of the arm sooner than otherwise, although healing to full strength will take about the same time.

The risks:

• Complications with general anaesthetic, possibly death(!) – generally 1 in 500 000, less for me given my age and health. I think I have more chance of dying on the road trip to the hospital.
• Damage to any of a few major nerves, particularly the radial nerve which controls the wrist, all fingers and thumb and runs very close to the fracture. Sometimes damage is only temporary. Apparently they take great care to isolate and avoid damage to this nerve in these procedures, but despite their best efforts it can happen. Chance of permanent paralysis to the hand is 1 in 10 000. Another doctor has suggested even this might be fixed with further operations.
• Infection – 2% risk, as with any surgery. But I’ve already been the victim of a 2% risk as assessed by a Sydney doctor (see an earlier post below). Hopefully now is not the time for another one. Often infections are fixed with antibiotics but can occasionally be more major. I guess this is the least serious complication, but the one with the highest risk.
• Possible irritation or other complications with the plates requiring a further operation to remove them when the bone has repaired. I recall this is a low risk but can’t remember the level. Otherwise they stay. Another doctor has indicated I could still have future MRI scans for other medical issues if needed, must be a non-magnetic metal. I’m unclear on the issues with clearing airport security metal detectors, but it must be possible.

My attitude: This is a sports injury, similar to ones which top grade footballers routinely get surgically fixed every day of the week, with complications rarely heard of. I can get it routinely fixed just like they do. The difference of course is that I don’t have a football club’s comprehensive medical fund policy to look after me financially meaning at the private hospital I will go to I’ll have some significant unwanted expenses, even with my medical insurance which only covers part of it. But I have to think I have a good chance of a good outcome given this hospital, or at least one affiliated with it (I can’t remember which) is the one at which Wally Lewis got his broken arm repaired, among other injuries.

The date is January 3rd, in the morning. Hospital stay should only be 1 or 2 days. It’s likely the first thing I’ll want to do when I regain consciousness is wiggle my right hand’s fingers and wrist. If they move as they should I’ll be pretty happy and it should be all up from there.

I guess after all that I haven’t said anything about Christmas. It was a great time with family in Queensland, not only Christmas day but several events in the Christmas season leading up to it. I might say more later but right now I’ve got other things on my mind!

George Pell’s Christmas message – Don’t blame God for the wars

I’m not a Catholic but this bloke makes a lot of sense.

Another corrected Christmas carol

The last episode of Spicks and Specks on ABC TV for the year was entitled "A Very Specky Christmas" and ended with another song which describes Christmas where I live far better than the original, lyrics at the link below. Enjoy it!

A Very Specky Christmas

Oh, and if you came here yesterday and couldn’t find the link on the post below sorry about that, but the link now works!

Time for a corrected Christmas carol

I’m not talking about the many great songs written about our Lord whose coming we celebrate at Christmas, they can be left just as they are – though the versions containing the words you and your are of course much preferred to the ones with thee, thy, thine ye, etc – words which no modern English-speaking person would ever contemplate using in a normal conversation, which begs the question as to why they’re still sung so regularly in church, but I digress…

What I’m talking about are a lot of other songs which have appeared over the years that are not about the reason for Christmas but rather the different traditions and mythical figures such as Santa Claus (yes sorry to break it to you kiddies, but he isn’t real – though if you’re old enough to be able to read this you probably already know that) which have become synonymous with the celebration of Christmas. The trouble with a lot of these songs is that they make no sense where I live, though shopping centres continue to play them ad infinitum and CDs with them on continue to be sold by the truckload. The point is, with the temperature around 30 degrees celsius I’ve never seen so much as one snowflake anywhere near Christmas day – apart from one year I was told about when I lived in Canberra aged about 5 give or take a bit. It’s not beyond the capabilities of Canberra to do this given a sufficiently freaky cold outbreak. But even then it melted instantly on contact with the ground. Hardly what I’d call a, ahem, "Winter Wonderland".

So in 1992 Colin Buchanan decided to keep the tune, but not the words, of a particularly well known Christmas song, and the new words certainly have a much closer resonance with my experience of Christmas. ABC radio decided to have him in as a guest one day and put the lyrics on their website. So here  it is:

Thank God it’s Christmas featuring Colin Buchanan

Come back tomorrow, I’ll have another one!

Recovery day 15

Since my last entry, quite a bit has happened. I have seen the spectacular St Barnabas Carols in Vic Park (there are a few photos here), got on an early plane to Brisbane the next day and attended a baptism service for a cousin’s baby that morning, and endured an ordeal along with Mum and Dad trying to find an orthapedic surgeon in Brisbane who is working during Christmas time and is not booked out – the Sydney doctors insisted I continued to receive regular follow-up, but neglected to give us any guidance as to who we should go to just a general referral letter for anyone who happened to see me.

Yesterday, despite the difficulty, I had an early appointment with a doctor in Brisbane, after having more X-rays done the day before. Although he wasn’t as adamant about the choice of course of action as the Sydney doctors were, he still agreed that at this stage letting it heal without surgical intervention was probably the best thing, subject to more X-rays and another examination on December 27. So at least for Christmas, I can relax about avoiding an operation.

A big thanks goes to Dad for coming to Sydney at short notice and helping me with all things that require 2 hands while I was there. However it is better for him and Mum that I come to their place just north of Brisbane where I am now so they can help me with the rest of the recovery, so we came here as soon as it was practical to do so. I will be here for a number of weeks, until I’m able to live completely independently again, at which time I’ll return to Sydney.

Happy Christmas!

Tomorrow I fly to Brisbane for more recovery, and for Christmas. I have a Christmas greeting for everyone, which will tell a bit about how this year has been for me. I might not be back in Sydney until January 19, but should still be able to update this site. Hope you have a great Christmas and Hasppy New Year!

“Calling International Rescue” + how it happened part 2

A couple of days ago I had an internet video chat with my brother and his family in Canada. My nearly-5-year-old nephew looked very concerned as he told me Virgil had hurt his leg and would not be able to fly Thunderbird 5 for a while. Just goes to show there is no beating quality, as Reuben now loves the same show I watched religiously early every Saturday morning when I was his age, when it was already an old show undergoing re-runs. No need to keep making the rubbish shows that people want to keep making these days. Just put on more re-runs on Thunderbirds, Spiderman, Battle of the Planets, and of course Astroboy, and kids of any era will be more than happy. I showed Reuben my broken arm, at which he looked even more concerned, but then in a split second went to a look of complete confidence that he could solve all my problems and proclaimed "I’ll just call International Rescue for you!" If only it was that easy…

 

Sitting in a consultation area in John Hunter Hospital waiting for a doctor to see me after examination of the X-rays that had been taken less than half an hour after my arrival, I contemplated that 2 days ago I’d looked around the park that the hang gliders had been set up in for ground handling training, looking for imminent signs of regaining of consciousness that inevitibly precede my waking from dreams that go off on such a tangent as to make them too good to be true. But it seemed that this time no matter how hard I concentrated on trying to discern any tell-tale signs of whether this was a dream or if it was real (this deliberate act is often enough to wake me up as I notice something that could not possibly happen in real life), the scene remained steadfastly the same. I really was doing the hang gliding course, after all these years. It seemed like a dream, but one that I was happily not going to wake up from. Now, sitting in the hospital, I looked around for anything that would tell me that I was in not a dream but a nightmare, that the day hadn’t really begun yet, that I’d soon wake up in my uncle and aunt’s house in Newcastle where I was staying, ready for the "real" day 3 of training, thinking "thank goodness that hasn’t really happened, now I can get on with another day of learning to fly." But nothing gave me any hope that this was my sleeping subconscious imagination. Both the dream and the nightmare were all too true. Soon my uncle arrived to observe how things were going to play out. Then a doctor arrived to tell me that I had "a very bad break of the bone in your right upper arm", to finally confirm what I already knew thanks to a nod and a wink from the ambulance paramedic who is officially not allowed to give patients the results of medical tests. She invited me to view the X-ray picture showing the bone in 2 pieces far from each other just above my elbow. She then advised that an orthapedic surgeon would soon see me. He was the one who told me the bone was actually in 3 pieces including a wedge-shaped fragment. He also gave his blunt assessment that this would almost certainly need an operation, that most patients in similar cases would choose it despite the risks. He said it could probably be done tomorrow in Newcastle, by the upper limb specialist surgeon, or alternatively I could go to Sydney since that was where my home was and find another specialist there. I opted for Newcastle since I didn’t fancy a 2 hour trip with a broken arm. I went as far as signing very messily, with my left hand, the forms for hospital admission and consent for the surgical procedure. But then I got the news that the doctor I would see was busy for the next week. Suddenly Sydney looked like the better option. My uncle kindly offered to drive me there, and the doctor explained that I would be given a temporary cast to immobilise the arm for the journey, and some painkillers that were now very much needed. 2 tablets and an injection later, the pain subsided but I became very dizzy trying to stand up for the fitting of the plaster. So they let me sit instead. Bone crunched against bone as they shaped the bandages and plaster and tried to get the arm in a reasonable position. They had no live X-ray or ultrasound or anything else to guide them yet against all odds they put it in the almost perfectly aligned position I saw yesterday in the later X-ray pictures. Soon I was getting gingerly into my uncle’s car for the journey to Sydney.

 

To be continued…

 

Plan A still the go

Went to the doctor this morning and got more X-rays. The bone has not moved from its previous position. I hadn’t actually seen the X-rays from last Thursday morning until today. The pieces are almost perfectly aligned with a slight diagonal gap where the break is. Comparing them with my memory of the ones at the Newcastle hospital before I got the cast (the 2 major pieces more than a bone diameter apart), it’s truly amazing how they put it back together without even trying. I think I should be more forthcoming than I have in previous posts and say Praise God who has everything in his hands for guiding them. I may not have an instant cure like the ones Jesus gave people when he walked on the earth, but he still does his work in different ways. I do have an 11 degree bend in the plane of elbow movement (up to 45 is tolerable, apparently), but vitually none in the other less tolerable direction. I wondered about asking the doctor whether I could play cricket when I recover and get away with throwing under the Murali rule – LOL!

 

I got a new cast and sling to improve the postion and immobility of the arm. Getting it changed is not what I would call fun, but is worth it for the long term benefit it will bring. There is sill no surgery needed. I will get more X-rays in a week when I’ll be in Brisbane, if it still hasn’t moved then the chance of a non-surgical cure rises to 98%. I would call that good odds.

Doctor checkup today

8:45am is the appointment time for the follow-up examination. To operate or not to operate, that is the question. If I haven’t added another post by the end of today, I’ve probably gone into hospital again for surgery. Otherwise I’ll post the results after the appointment.

 

Recovery – day 8 (and more on how it happened)

It’s now over a week since I did the damage to my arm, and I still haven’t come to terms with the way this year is going to end – very differently to how I’d planned – and the fact of quite a few things being on hold. One is the achievement of free-as-a-bird flight with a hang glider of couse. Another is playing music for the Barneys International service, and practising to get to the level of skill on the keyboard that I’d planned to before the year was out. Another is burning enough fat on long runs to get to the fitness level I’d planned to. In fact, long runs are quite out of the question for the rest of this year and a bit of next, with the horrifying thought of how much my muscles and cardiovascular condition will atrophy in the meantime. On the other hand though I’ll have plenty of time for reading lots of interesting stuff, and for some part-time study. I’ve enrolled in Moore College’s New Testament 1 unit, having just completed Introduction to the Bible in November, and should be able to devote a lot more time to it than I previously expected. I’m pleased to have been able to get through a few hours today, albeit through the fog of drowsiness induced by Panadeine Forte.

 

As you’ll probably know from earlier entries, my arm broke on impact with a sand dune at the end of a short hang glider training flight gone wrong. The previous day I’d done several dune runs, the aim of which were to practise launch technique and achieve a few seconds of straight and level flight followed by an upright landing. This I more or less achieved (more on some runs than others). The feeling of getting lifted off the ground by the wing strapped to my back, and controlling to some extent how I flew through the air for the short time that the energy of my run and the extent of the hill allowed, was something I was hungry for more of. Perhaps too hungry.

 

On the ill-fated day we picked another dune for the different wind direction, slightly longer but otherwise not much different. All was going well on my first run of the day until I felt a bit of a tug on the glider to the left of the direction I was trying to go, as my right wing started to lift. Wings not straight and level make for bad launches. I attempted to run the other way to correct it but by then I had enough lift to make the direction of my feet over the ground pretty ineffective. A second later I was in the air but banking and slipping to the left in an uncontrolled fashion. The instructors had strapped radios to the glider’s frame so they could yell instructions. "RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT!" in a somewhat panicked voice was all I could hear, and was doing my best to go that way, but there was no response from the machine, only the inevitable looming of another dune to the left. For anyone who cares to know, I was "cross-controlling" meaning that although I was shifting my upper body to the right, my legs were going left and my control movement was ineffective. Something to make a conscious effort to correct next time. The last mistake I made that day was holding on to the control frame instead of letting go, meaning the impact force got transferred to my arms.

 

Next thing I knew I was lying in the sand, still strapped in the harness, feeling that something was not really right. I was short of breath, probably from adrenaline, but did not hurt anywhere. However as I looked at my right arm flopped in an unnatural pose in the sand, my eyes told me it was in one position but the sense of where it was (that tells us where our limbs are even when we’re not looking) told me it was in a different position entirely. Not good. Slowly these senses realigned but parts of my arm were numb and I did not have full muscular control of it. Since I’d never broken a bone before I deduced that this is probably what happens when you do. "Stay still! Wiggle your fingers! Wiggle your toes!" were my first instructions. Much to my relief I was able to wiggle all such extremities. As instructor Tony did a first-class first-aid job on my arm with some bandages and a sling, I lamented to the others gathered around "I think it’s broken guys." One of my classmates helpfully informed me that the pain I didn’t have yet would settle in once the adrenaline stopped circulating in my body. That it did, on the bumpy 4WD ride back over the dunes to the access point. Meanwhile Tony was arranging for an ambulance, trying to explain to them where we were even though it didnt have a suburb name. Just as we hit bitumen road, there was the ambulance coming towards us with perfect timing. The ambos gave me a much-welcomed sniffy drug for the pain which had really turned up the volume, and said that Tony had done such a good sling job that they weren’t gonna touch it. A couple of quick mobile calls in the ambulance to let my dad and the uncle I was staying know the bad news, and a good pep talk from the paramedic looking after me, and next thing I know I’m at Newcastle’s John Hunter hospital to be examined. Ironically I’d driven past it on the way to the appointed place on the 1st morning and thought "somewhere I don’t plan on going anywhere near this week".

 

To be continued…