Only dead fish swim with the stream

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Start again

Start again.

Here are the X-Rays of the tension band wiring that was in my arm…

Elbow x-rays with tension band wiring Elbow x-rays with tension band wiring

I say was in my arm because it’s not there anymore. You can plainly see in the first pic there is a chunk of bone that has moved out of alignment. I went back in to hospital on Wednesday 20th June for an operation to have it repositioned. At the last appointment they said to me it may be a plate or more wire used to hold it. I was a little surprised to find out that they were going to remove all the previous metalwork. Once that was removed they’d replace it with a plate and screws. Starting over again really.

In the ward at 07:30 on Wednesday 20th, comfy in the bed by 08:30 and off to theatre by 09:15. The operation took approx 2 hours and I was coming around in the recovery room by about 11:30. In a back slab plaster again too which I don’t like. Had to wait for wifey to collect me when she’d finished work so I was back home by 16:30. The nerve blocker used as part pain relief took over 12 hours to wear off and the numb arm was a paperweight until the next morning. Weird feeling and slightly disconcerting. Sort of one step forward two steps backward really now as I’m back where I was a month ago. It’s bloody sore again as well as all the healing that had taken place so far was for nothing.

Hopefully though it should all heal ok this time, fingers crossed. It’s difficult to repair an elbow apparently and that often a few degrees of movement are lost after its broken. I can vouch for this already having broken the other one before. Hoping that this one won’t lose too much movement though. Back in a week to have the back slab off and I’m guessing more X-Rays. Hoping gentle movement will be allowed after that.

Update

Turns out that when the backslab came off the wound had got infected. They had to put me on a course of flucloxacillin antibiotics to clear that up. At least I now have the X-Rays of the plate and screws that replaced the previous wiring.

 

No idea how they managed to fit 8 screws in there, but they did. 8 screws, that’s almost a whole Meccano kit.

 

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