It has been a month!!!

Witness the magical month of recovery!

I earned it

Dos Equis Amber at Matador Redmond

It was one of the best beers ever.  It's weird how much you miss it when you can't have it.  Another upside of not taking the Oxy's.

My brace has been getting a lot of interesting comments from "When does the rest of the Iron Man suit get in" to "Does it come with sound effects?"  Here's a picture of it.

The hinge at the elbow restricts my arm from moving too much.  It keeps it from straightening itself out and making my life miserable. It also keeps you from curling your elbow up too much but just enough to keep your new ligament from being terribly static.  Part of my exercise is to curl the joint up and down as much as I can multiple times a day.  So, you add that to the hand movements I mentioned yesterday and it makes for a lot of movement.

I will say that you should expect this to hurt sometimes.  It will be sore.  Your muscles and forearm stuff is all still in a recovery stage. Just keep going. It's all about building those muscles and joints back to where they were.  I feel better every day and I'm definitely seeing progress.

Nuts and bolts.

Welcome to a really nice Sunday. I am excited to say that my pain meds have thus far been a complete waste of money. I really have been feeling pretty good. We took the dogs on a walk yesterday in the sun. Today we are going to try to see the Hunger Games.

Hard to watch Madson and Soria go down with torn UCLs.  They are both getting this surgery. For Soria, it's his second. While this hasn't been bad, I am not doing it twice.

So here is the nitty gritty. You wanted it, you got it.

The first picture was what I went In with. See that giant slacked line in there?  That was my ligament. It was stretched and torn like an old rubber band. The tear will be at the base there in the left corner but you probably won't see it.  You can certainly see how stretched it is though.  You can also see how big the incision is as well.

This would not have been an option to keep playing and lifting with. Sounds like it would have snapped quickly.

Now this is the new ligament. You can barely see it in there which is because it's tight and taut like it should be. Ever replaced a belt in a vacuum cleaner?  When you get that new one on, it's just so tight that you can immediately see the difference.  Well, there isn't much difference here.  My elbow just has a new belt in it.

Tomorrow starts physical therapy.

Pre-Op

I got the pre-op call today.  It sounds like everything is fairly standard. Here's the story if you ever need to do this:
1. Don't bring anything valuable, just your ID + Insurance card
2. Show up 90 minutes early
3. Hydrate well the day before. I stocked up on Sobe and Power-ade (all zero calorie of course)
4. Much like a Gremlin, no food or drink after midnight.
5.  The procedure here was booked for 2 hours.
6.  Expect a 90 minute recovery.

If you're wondering, Overlake does indeed validate parking. SUCH A DEAL!

If you're in the dark about the Tommy John procedure....

I regret to acknowledge that I have forgotten to describe what this procedure is.  The procedure is Ulnar Collateral Ligament reconstruction or replacement surgery commonly called "Tommy John" surgery.  The Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL) is the ligament at the true elbow joint.  The replacement is needed because the tear is usually at the base or hinge of the joint.

Tommy John was a pitcher in the 70's and was the first one ever to have this procedure done. He then was able to pitch another 12 years after the surgery.  He credits it with saving his career.

Here are a few resources for you to take a look at that I've found to be helpful:

Wiki!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_John_Surgery
A good article about it: http://thegoodpoint.com/2009/07/tommy-john-surgery-procedure/
Here's a video from the DMC in Detroit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huq8hrC4cOA&feature=fvsr

By the way, if you're at all squeamish, don't watch the video.  It's a bit....meaty.

Enjoy kids!