Thursday March 23rd was 3 months since I broke my arm (Dec 23rd), though I don’t count my healing time really starting until I had surgery on it a bit over a week later (31st). So, here’s an update.
March 10th, saw a surgeon who checked a new X-Ray. He noted a lot of new bone growth in and around the break. In the two images merged below, the left one is Jan 12th (13 days after the operation), right one is March 9th.
You can see some jagged bone from the break, on the left side of the left image. On the right image, a lot of new bone, and the jagged area is filled in. He said it is technically healed, but needs to get stronger over several months. So no push-ups or swinging an axe for many months. Uh, yeah, like I do push-ups, or chop wood with an axe rather than X-acto. But those were just examples of physical activity levels to avoid using that arm. So, with the X-rays showing it has healed properly, unless some problem arises, that was my last follow-up with the surgeon.
As far as my day-to-day activities, too not much of an effect. Main thing is the left arm won’t move more than 90 degrees (horizontal) from the shoulder joint, from the side outwards or forward. So I can’t reach up much to say get something or place something on a shelf above arm level. Rehab will address that. Also not a lot of strength, but then I’m not supposed to be putting a lot of stress on it by lifting much anyway, for awhile.
I’m able to build models. Been able to do that since the first month. Last week I flew an electric R/C plane, MultiStar, that I had to throw with my left arm (Transmitter in right hand, learned long go that swapping hands for throwing and R/C TX does not work well). Can’t throw too well right now, but enough to get that into the air, and Radians do not need much of a throw to start climbing out. So I can do a lot of stuff, just some not quite as well.
In any case, I was cleared to begin rehab. First session was Monday, second one Thursday. Went well. Have some stretching exercises to do 2-3 times a day, and eventually will include some weight training. All have more rehab sessions.
Last weekend, it was not too cold and not too windy, so I rode my bike a bit. In mid February I had tried riding it, intending to do 1-2 miles. I felt at first it was OK so I was going to do 2 miles but then I started to feel the first indicator of discomfort where the break was, so I rode back using only my right arm to steer. When I ride I am leaning forward a bit so there was a little bit of “push-up” type force applied even though it was only 1-2 pounds. Ay any rate I realized i needed to give it more time to heal properly. So last weekend I figured it was worth trying again even if I had to stop early. But it went OK, I did 6.1 miles Saturday and 4.4 Sunday (A little cooler but I wanted to ride some and 10 miles for the weekend was good incentive). And didn’t feel any discomfort with the arm at all (my legs were definitely out of shape, as is the rest of me, from not riding much since Nov 17th). I could probably do a 10 mile ride if the weather was nice enough, which it won’t be for awhile. There’s no issues steering or controlling the bike, my only concern is possibly falling and injuring myself. So I won’t be trying downhill very fast anymore, 15 mph is my limit, I used to try to go 25 mph down some hills to keep up momentum to go up the next hill. That was too risky to begin with. It will be many weeks before I ride enough to be in some decent enough shape to do a 20+ mile group ride. I’m not going to do as many group rides, for various reasons. And the ones that I do go on will be ones that are mostly flat, like Rail Trails, no high speed or high risk areas. And I do not mean that as a precaution against re-injuring the arm, I mean it as an overall long-term precaution from now on to reduce the chances of injuring anything.
So, with the arm healed, and rehab underway, this is likely to be my last update about the recovery from the broken arm. From here on out it should be a gradual thing with no significant news along the way. Hopefully by the end of the year i’ll be able to move it a lot more like I was able to before I broke it (that was part of the decision to go for the surgery to begin with). So, maybe and end-of-year update.