Broken

Well there are so many cliches I could use to lead into this ... I'll just throw it out there: I broke my right arm. Right next to the wrist, I was snowboarding with my brother Jonas and at the end of the night we decided to hit a jump. It seemed like a bad idea but I wanted to do it. My last words to my brother before attempt the jump were "Lets Do This!" as quoted from Frisky Dingo.

Hard to see, but I think that's the jump

There was a fairly steep drop leading to the area where the ramp was so I got a considerable amount of speed, the jump itself didn't look bad, a smaller ramp with a gap of maybe 3 feet and then the landing area. I figured I would need a bit of speed to clear it. Well I misjudged it and launched over the gap and the landing area, I found myself off-balance and coming to the ground fast with my board sideways and my ass and my hands going first into the ground. I haven't done a lot of jumps so my landing and my falls are terrible.

I landed on my tailbone and my wrists, i felt a jolt of pain in my butt as the wind was knocked out of me and a tremendous pain in my wrists. The pain in my left wrist went away but my right hand felt unusable, I was wearing a metal watch during my ride, I didn't think much of it because we weren't doing any crazy jumps earlier and I hadn't planned on it. Anyways the last thing I was thinking about falling on was my wrists.

I took a couple minutes to catch my breath as the spectators in the lifts groaned as I flew and cheered for me as crumpled on the ground and crawled to the edge of the jump to sit and collect myself. I hear "he made it!" and I throw my arms up in the air triumphantly knowing that I would enjoy some asshole hurting himself on a jump as much as they enjoyed me doing the same.

My brother launched behind me and fell rather hard himself, denting his helmet and banging up his arm. He may have had a concussion but he was much more worried about his bro.

We rode down the rest of the hill and walked to the medical center on site. I babied my swollen wrist and explained my fall as they shook their heads and started to fill out paperwork.

Got general questions about my age, experience, how many times I've been riding this year, if I read the posted warnings or not (course I didn't). They had a collection of cardboard and bandages to make a sling for my arm, then they grabbed some snow from outside and bagged it up to ice the injury. Worked out pretty well, they just wanted to go home at that point though.

Well I made it home and had a hell of a time sleeping. Was in a tremendous amount of pain for the whole night. I actually woke up at 4am from the pain and decided to grab an ice pack from the freezer downstairs. I took a half a oxy and headed down to the freezer. I managed to fall down the last four stairs and re-injured my arm ... was a really shitty thing to do in the morning. Oh well, I grabbed and ice pack and attempted to sleep again.

In the morning I called my primary care doctor (who was out of the office) and was told to go to Urgent care because most of the doctors were out and they were only taking people with colds. So I went to the Urgent Care down the road, I wanted to avoid the emergency room because of the ridiculous bills I would receive.

I got x rays of my arm/wrist to find out if it was broken, the x ray tech told me that in her opinion it was broken. Turns out she was right! They took four shots of my wrist and explained to me how I could get my results off the Internet. The doctor prescribed me Ultram for pain (a shitty pain medication) and recommend that I see an Orthopaedic Doctor for the break. I called the Cleveland Clinic later that morning and they set and appointment for me on Monday February 25th. I was rather frustrated at the wait but was told that its best to wait for the swelling to go down first.



Here is the report that goes along with the x rays:
Date of Service: 02/22/2013 09:56 Adm #: 1305300405 PROCEDURE: WRIST RT MIN 3 VIEW - AXR 0054 REASON FOR EXAM: snowboard injury RESULT: There is an impacted fracture of the distal right radius extending to the articular surface of the radiocarpal joint. There is also a fracture at the tip of the ulnar styloid. The intercarpal alignment appears satisfactory on four views. IMPRESSION: Impacted fracture of the distal right radius extending to the articular surface of the radiocarpal joint and also a fracture at the tip of the ulnar styloid of the right wrist.



The appointment Monday came and I had received a CD of the images from the Urgent Care Clinic. I attempted to load it up at home and the CD did not read. I was concerned that it would fail for the doctor and burned a DVD with jpegs that I downloaded from the medical website. It was a good thing I did because I would have had to get more x rays and pay out more money!

I had a good talk with the doctors regarding the severity of the break and what I needed to do. They need to put metal plates in the arm and it would take maybe two months before I could use my arm to lift anything again. No smoking but drinking was ok, as long as I don't get drunk and fall on my arm anyways. The metal plates could be removed eventually if they cause irritation with my tendons but is seen as an extra surgery otherwise and can stay in.

I'm not looking forward to the procedure on Friday, but at the same time I just want to get it over with because of the amount of pain I've been experiencing with the break. I guess I'm cleared to go on my dancing trips next month but they aren't sure about the Triathlon I signed up for in June. I guess I could do it but I would have no time to train! My boss is convinced that I am physically fit enough to at least finish the race with little to no training. It makes me nervous but I'll have a better idea of what my body can handle after the procedure.

This photo shows the break the best,
the bone is jutted out on the right.

Well I guess all I can do at this point is wait. I will have the surgery on Friday (3/1) and I will leave to Oregon for the Blues Recess on Thursday (3/7). I should be back in town on Monday (3/11) just in time to have my cast removed. From there I will be in a splint and ready to go to Steel City Blues on Friday ( 3/15). Yeah I really don't slow down do I? This will be a big challenge for me and my dancing ability. I don't know how much I'll be able to get out of the workshops since they are designed for people that have use of both of their arms! I will need to adapt and modify. I hope this helps me to develop a better connection and style to work with! I still intend on becoming a blues teacher someday. I won't let this stop me! :)

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Update:
The procedure that will be performed on me is: Right distal radius ORIF
And thanks to my friend Leslie I was able to find the full procedure I will be undertaking on YouTube! I was not however able to watch it ... not that I can't stand the sight of someone getting dissected .. but that's going to be me in less than 24 hours! It just doesn't settle well in my stomach. Maybe I'll take a look after the procedure to see what was done rather than was is going to be done.

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Alright, the break was worse than the doctor thought! I have a lot of hardware in me now and wow does it hurt :(

I guess this needs to come out in 6 months.

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Update! 3/11/2013

Looks like things are healing nicely. I got some more x-rays to share and things are looking good. (They will be coming soon)

The doctor drew a picture for me of what my bones did and how they are holding together. I wasn't able to get the orientation quite right when I added the numbers and some colored lines to help explain. :p

Orange lines represent parts where the bone split off.

Blue lines outline the hardware they put in.

Some of the black horizontal lines are screws, there are a bunch and not all were drawn.

1: This section of bone came off completely and was disconnected from the rest of the bone. They moved it back and there is a long plate on the side of the bone to hold it in place.

2: This piece split off and rotated 90 degrees around. Must have had enough force not only to snap it but to send it spinning inside my hand! There is another plate on that one with a bunch of screws to keep it connected.

3: One last section of bone that was broken as well. I'm not sure that this one was completely severed but there is another plate put on to keep it together. Once again with several screws.

I'm told that things are healing nicely and that there is still a nice curve to the bone which should allow me to move my wrist without much issue. This is very promising.

I listed a few pictures of my hand with and without stitches. They took off the splint I was wearing (had it on for about a week) and put me in a cast yesterday, I'll be in it for about 3 weeks and then I'll be starting physical therapy.

I guess the incisions are healing up nicely and the stitches came out without much trouble. There was a bit of pain but they all came out in one piece. I was happy to see and feel that happen. I don't want to imagine what kind of action would have been needed if one of the stitches snapped or got stuck!

Well, after getting x-rays and getting the stitches out, it was time for a cast! There was a bit of a wait (they had a queue of people getting casts put on), but I think they did a great job.

The color selection was rather extensive! I've included a picture, we have pink, grey, red, purple, black, blue, orange, green, powder blue, yellow, white. There were also some patterns (not all pictured), fatigue, some multi-color one, and one more I can't quite remember.

The actual casting was an interesting experience;
First they put a thin cloth on my hand to protect my skin.
Then they put a white fiberglass wrapping on my hand and wrist. It got pretty warm as the chemicals set.
Next he cut some parts of the cloth that was on my hand and sticking out the bottom and top of the cast so far and covered the white cast they had put on.
Lastly the red fiberglass wrapping was put on the top.

He mad it fit rather snugly and let me know that it would loosen up as the swelling went down more. Also if I held my hand down for too long blood would rush to it and i would get some throbbing pain.

Either way it was an alright experience. Now I have a bright red cast to show off and get signed at the next dance event I go to! That will be this coming weekend at Steel City Blues. I'll get a picture with signatures before they cut it off three weeks from now.

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Looking for more information? Check out the update here: http://sonicmna.blogspot.com/2013/04/broken-2-mending-edition.html