Dislocation diary: Day 19

Sitting at Salt Lake City airport waiting for my flight back to Calgary. Spent a week visiting in Idaho visiting work’s sister publishing press in the US. Doctor obviously thought I was well and fit enough to travel with a recovering dislocated elbow.

Flying to Idaho was the trickier part as my arm was still in a sling. It wasn’t painful or anything, just inconvenient as had to do everything with one hand. Still, it was a good visual warning to everybody else not to bump my poor elbow!

Have had amazing improvements to elbow over the last week. The bruising around the forearm area actually got more and more obvious as the pain receded (extremely slowly). The bruises are now this sick yellow-green colour. I can only hope the fact that the bruises are showing more is a sign that things are getting better!

Ditched the sling about three days ago. Simply didn’t feel like I needed it any more, even though the doctor did say I had to have it on for two weeks after the cast came off.

There is a significant amount of strength that has returned to the arm, although I’ve avoided doing any kind of heavy lifting and some twisting motions (like to open containers) can still send twinges of pain down the arm to the elbow.

My typing is back to normal now. In fact, in a sitting position, I doubt anybody can guess that I’m nursing a dislocated elbow. And it actually feels like I’ve got a normal arm.

Standing and walking is a different matter. I still have to hold my arm at an almost 90 degrees as I cannot straighten it completely, and leaving it hanging at its 140 or so degrees is quite tiring. Same thing with bending, probably can get it to about 30 degrees. But, I’m getting significantly more range now and am getting a teeny weeny bit more and more each day.

Sleeping has been so much better. I no longer have to wake up several times in the middle of the night to ease the sore shoulder. In fact, the shoulder hardly aches anymore. It’s still a bit tight, probably just from the way I still have to hold the elbow walking around, and probably also because of my crazy amount of laptop use.

Have woken up in the middle of the night the last two nights (prior to that, had actually slept through the night!) with a light throbbing in the elbow/arm area. It’s not so much pain sore, although there is that, but just this general soreness, probably like as if I hadn’t stretched it in ages. Then again, I pretty much sleep in one position, so no wonder.

When I wake up in the morning, the arm feels quite tired and sore as well, but after an hour or so, I suppose all the muscles warm up and things feel better.

I still put the strap on during the day if I’m out and about, and also when I’m sleeping. I’ve tried it without, but the strap certainly gives a good amount of support and I feel is much better when I’m sleeping. Have stopped taking my medication, although am contemplating starting on it again if I wake up in the middle of the night again.