Just returned from my first post-op visit with Dr. Warden. I first was sent in for an X-Ray of the elbow, complete with splint, and then to an examination room where a nurse pulled up my X-Ray, cut away the dressings, and left me to wait for the doctor. I am now regretting my adherence to the “No Cell Phone Use” signs and the resulting failure to snap pics of my wound site (invisible to me without reflection) or my X-Ray, an oversight which I will amend in the future. I hope! What I could see of the arm looked great-no major swelling or discoloration-and I could also see a pin seated in the end of my ulna that looked to be fine.

The doctor then came in and told me that the anchoring had been extremely difficult and even accused me of passing a six month old rupture off as fresh. He mimicked putting his foot up on the wall and pulling with both hands as an illustration of how difficult it had been to retrieve the end of the tendon, and told me that the first pin he had inserted had actually pulled out. The upshot is that we are going slow and I am stuck with this splint until at least the 26th of this month.

As for the difficulty, I have my own theory. On several occasions after the accident I had raised my right hand too high in the air and an involuntary mechanism had cut in, causing my arm to snap to a fully flexed state accompanied by very powerful and painful spasms in the upper arm. My theory is that those spasms were the unattached triceps firing to do the work they were supposed to do, and those episodes essentially left those muscles tied up in a big knot that resisted straightening. Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!