Nearly 5 weeks post-surgery.

Week 5 update: Scar swelling is down, but it's still pretty painful. It hurts to be touched, and my physical therapist is now starting to worry about something called Reflex Sympathetic Distrophy (RSD)  which can occur after injury or surgery. I now have to massage my incision site a few times a day, in addition to what the therapist does 3x a week.

The white dot in the middle of my scar is the rogue stitch poking out. 

I've started lifting more weights at PT, and on the hand bike, which is tiring but good.

I'm fully out of the brace and still can't get the last 5 degrees of extension in my arm, but still improving, I think . Can't wait to ride my bike!

Short post for dog owners

Today marks two weeks with wonder pup. It's been up and down (mostly up) and she's growing like a weed. She already went up two notches and then out of her puppy collar and is into the "medium" collar group already. :'(

She went to her first puppy social hour yesterday. I know everyone is going to tease me about this being like an overbearing "new mom," but every book and article I've read about how to raise a decent, mellow dog has said that this is crucial for bite inhibition. It teaches them how hard is too hard to bite, and how to play nicely. This is, apparently, a critical step before 16 weeks of age that many people don't pay that much attention to. It also reduces dog-dog aggression later in life as well.

Here's Em at her playtime:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uR6TilqeVE


One last note to new dog owners and people with older dogs alike:

Go get one of these:

This is the "Kong stuff-a-ball". I feed all of Emmie's meals in this thing. It gives them something to do for a half hour or so, they are learning while they are doing it, and it teaches them to be excited about food. I just pour the kibble in the side with the large hole, put it on the ground and she works out how to get every last bit out. Seriously, this totally works. Go get one. It's only $7. 

23 days later...

It's been 23 days since my surgery. I have 2.5 weeks left of leave. I can extend and flex my arm nearly 100% and the physical therapist says only one more week in the brace. I started strength training today. 3lb barbells, woo hoo!! It hurts, but feels good to finally put my biceps and triceps to some use.

The doctor and physical therapist are amazed at my speedy recovery. I still get the stiffness in my hand and arm, but most the the electrical kind of pain and numbness is gone. I'll feel it like once or twice per day (instead of ~6 hours or more a day).

I did find out today that one of my (supposedly) internal stitches is peeking up out of my scar. So I'll have to get that pulled out manually in two weeks when I go back to the dr. It's totally freaking me out though.

All in all, I'm still taking it slow, but things seem to be on the up!

It's finally puppy day!

Meet Emmie Lou:

She's our new puppy. :)

We adopted her from rocket dog rescue. She and her brother, sister and mother were found in a field when the pups were just 6 weeks old. Here they are at the foster person's house:

Emmie's mom & siblings

Emmie (far right) with her two siblings. 

They say that the mom is a redbone coonhound which Google image search seems to comply with. Dad is of unknown origin. We think she will be about 60 lbs when fully grown. So about the size of a small lab.

Emmie has been with us for one week, making her 12 weeks old by the vet's estimate. She is doing really well, so far. We took her to the vet right away and found out she had a parasite (most puppies do), but is nearly done with her course of meds, and the house has been disinfected with lysol multiple times.

So far the first week consisted of getting used to her (and her to us), learning her name (and attention), housebreaking, simple tricks (sit, down, shake) and who the boss is (me, cw lets her get away with murder). We also got over the hump of crate training (she sleeps locked in her crate at night).

Sleeping in her crate like a champ on night 2

I was totally worried about not being able to sleep through the night with her. But I only woke up with Emmie in the middle of the night on the very first night because all the puppy books had me totally freaked out. Like, if I didn't wake her up every 3 hours and drag her outside, she'd never be housetrained. So it was me that was freaking out, not her. I literally woke her up at 3am and picked her up and dragged her outside to pee. I should have just let sleeping dogs lie. :)

She learns fast and is fun to be around and teach. She's adorable and lovely most of the time. She doesn't bark when other dogs are barking, or when people come into the house. She's goofy and silly and loves us more than anything.

Having said that, there are 3 things that are wearing me out (Iv'e never had a puppy this young before):

1) She howls like the devil when she's left alone. This is probably the MOST infuriating thing. We can't leave her longer than a few hours.. for worry that the neighbors will kill us.

2) She's making the cat insane. He's mega-stressed... this on week 2's agenda.

3) She sleeps *A LOT*, but when she's not sleeping she has massive bouts of energy and goes kinda nutty. Sometimes, I just want Emmie to chill, but when she's hyper it requires a lot of attention to prevent her from chewing arbitrary things. She just gets worked up and if you aren't  playing with her, she finds ways to get your attention. Clever girl.

Week 2 agenda:

• Enjoying alone time. (well, at least not howling)
• Befriending the cat (well, at least not hunting him)
• Walking nicely on a leash (well, at least not chewing it while walking)
• Need to find an excellent dog sitter/walker

My goals for each day are simple. I set them in advance, and then just keep reinforcing reinforcing. I find this to be the only way to not get overwhelmed with all the teaching and training needed.


So that's it. It's quite a rollercoaster. I'm hoping in a month or two everything will settle and she'll start to be a lazy house dog.

It's hard, but not impossible. Frustrating some, but fun. I'm sure each week will get easier and easier.  Cause she's just too damn adorable.

Week 2.5

Week 2.5, originally uploaded by pinkestblack.

Getting better @ 2.5 weeks (This is an old photo). I still had one stitch on, but the incision was almost completely closed. Arm is still stiff and swollen here.

Progress - 1 week post surgery

Progress - 1 week post surgery, originally uploaded by pinkestblack.

I removed my cast and bandages last night to change them, and snapped a quick photo of my incision. It's doing pretty well, as far as I can tell, though it is a bit raised this time (I hope that goes away).

The purple line is just marker to show the incision line, the yellow is partially the sterilizing fluid from the surgery (I tried to clean off as much as I felt comfortable with) and partially bruising. It's bruised and swollen still, but looking ok. The big bandage at the top of the slice is covering a patch of skin that got ripped off with tape the day of the surgery. OW!

I'm bruised and swollen near the interior part of my elbow, which I can only assume is why my nerve has been freshly located to, or where they borrowed fascia from to hold the nerve in place. It hurts more than it should.

I'm going to try today to switch to Ibuprofen from my stronger pain killers (percocet) but I'm not hopeful, since it still hurts quite a bit. We shall see. Last percocet was at 9pm last night. So I'm already out 14 hours.. not too shabby. Guess I should stop typing to help ease the pain. :)

What is the sound of one hand typing?

So, it's kind of remarkable the things I have realised I can do with one hand alone. I thought I would be more limited than I am.

Yesterday was the first day I attempted two-handed typing. And while it wears me out and I have to keep my bad arm propped on a pillow in a precarious way, it's totally worth it. One handed typing for a computer nerd is pretty much the worst.

Here's a (surprisingly short) list of the things I still can't do:

• Put my hair up in ponytails or pigtails
• zip zippers & button buttons (jeans are out for now)
• wash dishes (woo hoo!)
• open bottles or jars

Here are some things I can (surprisingly) do with just one hand:

• open my medicine bottles
• put on mascara
• flat iron my bangs 
• put on socks 
• take a bath/wash my own hair

I'm sure there are some more things I'm missing, but I've been pretty proud of myself for being pretty independent lately. It's amazing how much you can do with one hand!