2019: The Year of the Wrist

I joked that 2019 was the year of the wrist, and it seems like 2020 is off to a similar start. Everyone is dying to know all about my wrist saga, right? Probably not, but I’ll share anyway. In early July I slipped on the wet floor after taking a shower. I fell down to the ground and laid there for a minute. I felt banged up on most of my right side - toes, hip, ribs, and WRIST. A week or so later everything felt better but my wrist. I thought perhaps it was because I was carrying around a four-month-old and lugging around a car seat. Another week went by and I decided to see my doctor. He said maybe it was sprained and prescribed some cream to put on it to help with pain and recovery and suggested a small splint. Two weeks later it still hurt, so he finally took an x-ray. The results came in, and I had fractured my radius. I felt disappointed that it had talked four weeks to get an accurate diagnosis, I also felt frustrated that it would take another week and a half to see the hand specialist. When I finally saw him he had an occupational therapist make me a thermoplastic splint. At least it was purple and pink! I wore it all of the time except I could take it off to shower which was nicer than having a fiberglass cast, but it was still very hot and sweaty to wear in August. About two weeks into it, my left shoulder started killing me. It hurt so much that I decided to go to urgent care and was diagnosed with tendinitis and given a sling. So there I was with a cast on one arm and a sling for the other arm. You don’t have to be a mother to know that this is nearly impossible for a stay at home mom of two. I went to my primary care physician and got a cortisone shot in the rotator cuff area but didn’t receive any relief from it. After four weeks of the thermoplastic cast, I got an MRI and discovered I had a tear in my triangular fibrocartilage complex - a body part I didn’t know I even had until it gave me a hard time. I saw my hand specialist after a month of the cast, and he said the bone should be healed but that cartilage doesn’t heal on its own. He did a cortisone shot in it, and it didn’t provide anything relief. I also was skeptical about this method because I wasn’t looking to mask the pain of an unhealed injury for the rest of my life. I contacted his office ten days later to say I hadn’t gotten any relief from the shot, and his nurse said I could come in for another shot. I felt frustrated and confused about why a hand surgeon wouldn’t do hand surgery. I decided to reach out to the parents of one of Sarah’s friends from school. The dad is an orthopedic surgeon at another hospital, and he helped me get in with the hand specialist there quickly. I got to see her the next day on September 19. I immediately felt connected and heard when she actually did a physical exam on my wrist. The former surgeon had never even touched my wrist before diagnosing and treating. When she suggested surgery I honestly was relieved and very ready. She told me I didn’t have to go with her and her treatment plan, and I feared up because my pain was finally being validated, and we had a treatment plan that made sense to me. I told her I was on board, but she still wanted me to think about it over the weekend. Her plan was to anchor the TFCC back to the radius. I would have a soft long arm cast for two weeks and a fiberglass long arm cast for six weeks. Then I would have months of therapy. On Monday I called her and booked it. She was able to do the surgery about four weeks later on October 14, three and a half months after my injury. I was kind of nervous about the surgery but also very ready to finally be on the road to recovery. When I woke up from the surgery, Robert told me it didn’t go according to plan. The part of the TFCC that was injured was actually frayed in the middle instead of being detached from the radius area, so she didn’t need to anchor anything back together and did a debridement or clean up of the frayed TFCC. The good news was that I would only have a soft short arm cast for two weeks followed by four weeks of a brace. The bad news was that a full recovery was unlikely. The goal would be to get back to about 80%. The funny part was that she said I would no longer be able to do pushups. Darn! Ha! I was to ice my arm for 20 minutes every hour, but of course, I really couldn’t feel it through my gigantic cast. I had a metal bar on the entire underneath of my arm from the base of my fingers up to my elbow, and then it was wrapped in gauze and an Ace Bandage type thing. I think I took my prescription pain medicine for about two days and switched to Ibuprofen after that for another few days. I couldn’t lift anything over five pounds, so I couldn’t carry either kid. Robert took the first week off of work, and then he had to go out of town for his doctoral program, and my mom came and stayed with us. I had my follow up appointment with my PA at 10 days post-op. She increased my weight limit to 7 whole pounds. Big deal! Ha! She took out my stitches and gave me a brace. At this point, I realized that I only had two small laparoscopic incisions. I really didn’t know what it looked like before that. I immediately started occupational therapy. One of the silver linings of all of this is that I have really enjoyed the two therapists I have had. I’m able to get the first appointment of the day at 7:30. I leave at 7:00 so Robert gets the kids ready while I’m gone, and I get home just in time for him to leave for work. I have been trying to view it as “me time.” It’s a scheduled appointment that I have to keep, and I get to kind of check out and get my hand and arm massaged and exercise it. The therapists are very easy to talk to. They have been very pleased with my progress and continue to tell me that my progress is normal even though it’s slower than I had expected. When my surgeon had said it’s a simple surgery I guess she meant it’s simple for her to perform. When telling my therapist that, he told me it still takes about a year to recover. I saw my surgeon again on November 26, six weeks post-op and she renewed me for another six weeks of therapy which didn’t surprise me. I saw my PA again on January 7, and I was on the fence about whether or not I thought she’d release me. She did not. I wasn’t terribly disappointed because I don’t want to be released until I feel very good about my ability to perform everyday tasks and am experiencing minimal pain. She renewed me for another six weeks of therapy, and I’ll see the surgeon again on February 27. This time she included work on my rotator cuff because it was still causing me pain. The therapist has been helpful with that. Apparently, one part of the rotator cuff is unusually tight and another is unusually loose. I have no idea what the parts are, but I know it causes me pain and limited mobility. It was caused by overdoing it with my left arm when I couldn’t use my right arm. My main causes of wrist pain are things in the “pronation” position as they call it. Things like typing on a computer (like right now) and playing the piano. I am hoping and praying for continued improvement with those things because obviously, I can’t avoid them forever. My surgeon released me at the end of February when I saw her, and I’ll continue doing what I’ve learned from OT and do those things at home and just give it time (about seven more months), and then I’ll hit one year post-op. It’s been an interesting experience. On a funny note, in fourth grade a lot of people seemed to have broken bones and I was jealous and thought it seemed cool and interesting. I’m here to tell you that it is not. On a more serious note, I am thankful for family and friends who have stepped in and helped so much. I also had to be okay with just making sure the basics were done: food and laundry. Other things had to slide and we survived. Here’s hoping 2021 is NOT the year of the wrist!