Surgery Update and Thoughts

It has been a week and a half since my surgery. All went well with that, but thought I should come here and update how things have progressed, or not, since the surgery.

When I broke my shoulder, it was two breaks, but those two pieces were shattered and broken into several pieces. Technically speaking, I had eight breaks. The Doctor had to basically sew all the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. One of the pieces looks to have popped out of the stitches. When the Doctor manipulated my arm, we can hear the grinding of the bone (very painful too).
He will need to do another surgery to fix that. We are waiting until the other bones have a chance to heal some, before the next surgery though. Physical Therapy can only be done from my elbow down for now, because the Doctor does not want my shoulder moved for a month. So all physical therapy exercises are being done at home until after the first week of February, if the Doctor gives the okey for my shoulder to be moved, to resume Physical Therapy.

I still have very little feeling in my hand and arm. Alot of numbness and alot of tingling. My hand is cold all the time, freezing cold where it aches. I started keeping a glove on that hand to try and help with that. The pain meds have been making me very sick. I've been on a couple different meds, to help with the nausea, but they have only made things worse. So, I decided to quit taking all prescription pain meds, being sick and not able to eat or drink for the past 2 weeks wasn't worth it. I discussed this with the doctor,( at that time I was off the meds for 23 hours). and told him the pain wasn't anything I couldn't handle.
I may have rushed that just a little. I am now feeling pain I didn't feel before, and some very sharp burning pains in the back of my shoulder, I think that is nerve pain. If it gets worse I may rethink the pain meds, but going to give that another day or two.

I have to admit when I first got hurt, I didn't realize this was going to be such a long recovery. But realizing now, the type of breaks and how many I had, plus the nerve damage, it will be many months of healing, a long, slow process.

I will be lying if I said I don’t get discouraged sometimes. I have my moments. Something very simple that I could have done 2 weeks ago, I can no longer do. Those are the times I start to crash, and think about some of the independence that I have lost. Those moments are few and far between though. I know this is temporary.

Yesterday hubby let me in the cat room for awhile. My friends know that my cat room is my little slice of Heaven, full of living miracles. Oscer just grabbed my face like he does with both paws, and kissed my nose, cuddled in my lap, then all seven cats took their turns with me. Those are the moments that remind me to keep positive, I will get through this, I have to get through this and get better, I have lots of little lives relying on me.

Having five very active dogs and one being a very young Border Collie, helps keep me smiling and laughing, and they all give me more reasons to keep a positive attitude and take one day at a time.

Then I still have the eight plus feral cats outside in my shelter, that rely on me as their human to care for them. They need me to get back to normal, and I will.

Hubby has just been superb through this all. He doesn't think twice about all he has to do now. Clean house, dust, Vac, laundry, dishes, cooking, caring , feeding all 20 animals in this house. Plus the added care he has to do for me and help me with so many little tasks I can no longer do for myself, he even helped curl my hair yesterday. All of this, and he still puts in a 10-12 hour day everyday at work. He should be voted husband of the year.

I am very blessed and surrounded with all the love and support I have from Hubby, all of my wonderful dogs and cats, and from all of you, my special friends.

One day at a time, with a positive attitude, and determination.

PS. I have some very cute photos and videos of Annie, I will post soon.