I know it has been a while

I have been doing pretty good recently. I am out of physical therapy and I have full range of motion. That does not mean full strength by any means. Just because I can put my hand over my head does not mean I can pick up 15 lbs. But soon enough I will, soon enough.
My arm still aches from time to time and when I use it to much the next day it is pretty dead. I am still mousing with my left hand, but I am shaving and brushing my teeth right handed.
I go back to the doctor monday, so I will know more then.
Last time I was there he took me out of my brace, and told me I was looking real good. There is a lump on the top side of my arm with new bone growing (it is strange b/c when I lean against a wall, the lump sticks out enough I rock like a teeter totter) and a crack on the bottom side.
Heres hope the crack is not as big.
No good pic, so I will leave you with chuck d and me

i slept in a bed

I slept laying down in a bed last night for the first time since Dec 21 2007.
I tossed and turned a lot of the night and my upper back feels a bit strange.
I don't think I am ready for full time bed sleeping. But it was nice to lay flat for the fist time in 83 days.
Physical therapy is going pretty well. The rubber band stuff is still the hardest, but I am up to 4 pounds on my curls. It does not get better then that.
I go back to the doctor on the 24th and we will see how it is all going then.

i can lift my arm...a bit

So I have limited motion now and it is very exciting. I can sometimes turn keys in a door and hold a beverage in my hand. It is all very nice. I am able to get to this point mostly because of physical therapy.
I am going two times a week for about an hour. It is helping me build strength and letting me see just how far I have to go.
I have been bested by rubber bands and 2 pound weights.
I can also, with help from the trainer extend my arm past zero. Which means stretching it out straight and hyper extending it just a bit. I started at some place near 20 so that is pretty good. I can also bend it back, with help to 136 (my left arm goes to 150). It will happen soon.
Lots of this work it terriblely painful but it is all part of the risk of snowboarding I guess.
So things have been pretty good. I think I am going to try to sleep in a bed next week, my back is starting to get mad at me for not laying down flat. Other then the bed there are lots of things I still can't do, I mean I was doing curls with 3 pounds today and it about killed me.
I am no place close to getting my arm over my head, I am hoping to get stuff to my mouth soon.
All that being said, i feel like it could have still been a lot worse.
This is what one of the stretches is, it is called the prayer stretch it is real fun!

i have baby bone

So I have gone from making bone 3 weeks ago to having baby bone. The bone in my arm is coming along, it is not very thick and and kinda of fragile. But I not so week that I have to wear that green hunk of fiberglass any more. no sir re!
I got my cast off!

my arm is also a bit on the skinny side for a while

I have a brace on my arm now, shoulder to elbow, with Velcro straps, that I have to wear for the next six weeks. Thats when I go back to the doctor again. The healing part of my arm is not what hurts the most, it is my elbow.
It feels like, when you wake up after having slept with your arm behind your head. Numb and sore, my has now felt that way for 4 days. So yesterday I stared with my physical therapy, that I am going to twice a week.
Maybe be the time I am done with that I can bring a glass of water to my mouth and drink from it.
heres hoping!
But it is nice to have the cast off. tuesday morning I stood in the show for 30 min, it was nice to soak the arm, it was also nice to scrub a lot of the dead skin cells off, my arm had some bad dandruff.

i turned 28

So some my and some friends stormed the beach last weekend for my birthday

The whole event went pretty well and there was a nice little party that followed. Good Times. Thanks guys, Tuscaloosa Polar Bear Club 2 was great.

The arm hung in there pretty well. No water, the sleeve thing keepth my dry. I could not make it all the way under the water, fiberglass floats. My arm was pretty much a little boat.
But I go back to the Doctor on Monday, 8:30am, I hope to get the little boat off my arm. But I have thought that one time before. So I am trying not to get my hopes up.
I still can not lift my arm up all the way but I can hold a full bottle of water at this point!
I am moving on up in the world.
So we will see, I will keep the world posted.

i am makeing bone

I still have a cast on, that is b/c i am doing so well. i went to the doctor last week and it took all of about 30min. Thats right 30 min. I have been in there for 6 hours waiting. I got x-rayed for about the 20th time since dec 22nd. the doctor came in and showed my the side by side of the x-ray and the x-ray from 2 weeks ago, the bone had not moved and i was making bone. So b/c i am doing so well in the cast we are keeping the bad boy on! Next doc visit, 2-18-08!
so i am jumping in the lake Saturday at 1pm with this bad boy on! come and join me!

i could get my cast off soon

i went to the doctor wednesday. i got x-rayed had the results checked out and was told by the doctors that i was looking really good. it felt like the doctors were doting on my arm. all the sitting around and laying low is paying off.
they also told me that if in 2 weeks i keep progressing as i am now, they might cut me out of the cast. when that happens i will be in a sling for a while with limited range of motion.
But for now i am still in old green.

thursday i got to eat lunch with my godson Han (we had entirely different meals) and his parents rob and amanda. Amac was nice enough to cut my meat.
maybe soon i can hold the boy for real.

i have a new "bed"

So sleeping has been a major problem recently. I can not lay down in a bed. the bones bend all around and hurt like the dickens. so since dec 31st i had been sleeping propped up on my couch. I was wakening up about every 20 to 40 min though the night from arm pain or just being uncomfortable. My couch has two cushions and from the way i was propped up my posterior would slide between the cushions. my left leg was getting craps and knots from trying to hold on.
BUT NO MORE
I was talking to my grandmother and then my parents who offered to help by me this!

my new bed. matt king smith drove me around on saturday and we went shoping and sunday we went bsck and loaded up the new recliner in my car, it was mine. Eric St. Clair Came over to help matt get in in the house and set it up. i thank them SO much.
Now i am only wakening 1 time at night. it is so great.
thanks to grandma, mom and dad, and eric and matt.
People are already telling me that in the afternoon i sound a lot better. it is true, i dont feel like death warmed over. b/c i can do this!

I also have a "live in nurse" for a bit. Lydia is in germany for seven months and robb just graduated from library school and is looking for a job, robb is couch surfing for a bit now b/c robb and lydia are sub-leasing their place.
Robb already helped me get my arm apparatus on so i could bath myself. Robb is gonna help out around the place, doing so things i can't(pick up, carry laundry, wash dishes). good times.

i have good friends

so this is what my arm looked like when it broke

while recovering from this, i had nice friends who supported me while i was in my time of need. i got encouraging words from them like these:

We say your a wuss. You should have gone and got a shovel, dug a few feet down to the dirt and rubbed it on your arm. Then got back up and kept going. Wuss.

Matt and i are drinking beers...... With our right arms.

good work! like i always say - snowboarders are the people lying with broken arms that we have to avoid while skiing

merry christmas jackass

i wonder if your new right hand will be dyslexic also.

my friends are good people.

at least my arm looks kinda like this now.

i felt the wind blow through my hair

the breeze in my hair, it was the first time i have experienced that since October 1st, 2005. now my hair is getting "long".
now that it is growing it gets greasy and i can not wash my head with just face wash, i need to shampoo it. i have had some offers to cut it, but i cant go to a hair stylist every two days to shave my head. so tonight it was time to bath all by my self.
i finally got this thing to work.
last time courtney and i tried it to no avail, we both just scraped our knuckles a lot. tonight i cut a bit off the end and it took me 20 min and a lot of pain to get the thing on my arm.
once it was on, it hurt a lot and worked. i was abale to clean myself and wash my hair. the thing worked!
watch me get this crazy thing off me.

i have a neon green cast

so matt and i got out of the andrews clinic at 7:30pm. We started or adventure in the hospital at 12:30pm. The doctor i had was Dr. Dugas,

he treats all types of orthopaedic sports injuries, including injuries of the shoulder, elbow, knee, ankle and foot. Dr. Dugas has contributed significantly to the research of sports medicine. He has published articles and textbook chapters related to injuries of the shoulder and elbow in throwing athletes, vascular injuries in throwers and rotator cuff injuries.

i trust this guy a lot more than i trusted ole Bony Barrineau. Thats right his first name is Bony.
So I am not going to have the surgery. He likes the way the set looks. And took me out of the contraption Bony puy me in and put me in a hanging arm cast.

The cast is made a bit extra heavy so it pulls everything down. If things are not looking right, this allows for surguery to be an option. I go back on the 16th for my first follow up.
I feel a lot better than i did. the swelling is going down and the color is very slowly coming back to my hand. the top is still discolored but my palm is looking good.
I even went back to work thusday and friday for half days. i came home and crashed both days but i am geting in the swing of things.
i even went out for a bit last night and eric was there to step up and be the first to sign the cast (followed by page, matt, bo and then a slew of others).

i went to an ER

So on the advice of courtney,s nurse mom, friends and peoplw who told me how much of an ass Dr. Barrineau is, i went to the ER today. I went to the big city of birmingham that has one of them big truama centers. Now I am at the Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center at St. Vincents Hospital. All of this is thanks to MATT KING SMITH who drove me into the big city this morning.
I went b/c my hand was swollen, black and blue...well this is what it looked like.

So the er people took of the crappy brace that Buddy made for me that was makeing my fingers tingle and caused me more pain then i had been in since the day of the spill. Thet put me in a splint much like the one Dr. Jackass had thought was dumb. But before thet did that, they put me in the wrong kind of splint and it hurt...A LOT! Matt caught the action for me.


Now that i am in the right splint and i had an anti-inflamitory injection i feel a lot better. The ER got me in to see an orthopidic that i had called this morning and they had said they could not see me until the end of the month. Well it may take 3 hours but i am getting worked in today.
no more dr barrineau!
thanks to matt for being in for the long huall today. we left t-town arond 11am here we are, waiting in a hallway b/c the waiting room is full, at 4:30 with no end in sight. matt wins the friend of the day award.