So….I don’t put a lot of personal stuff out on Facebook. If I’m having a bad day or something is screwing with my life, I don’t see the need to make it an international newsflash on social media. Okay….so….maybe that’s an understatement. Let me put it in perspective….if I dropped dead tomorrow and someone posted it on social media, I would make the sole mission of my afterlife to haunt that person for the rest of eternity. I just always figure that people have enough stuff going on in their lives without having to worry about the fact that I got a nose bleed that afternoon.
BUT…..this afternoon my aunt made a comment to a morning “Smile Dammit” post and commented on a surgery and the severity of it. I deleted her comment, but not before it hit some people’s desktops. My instant messenger has been blowing up ever since. Don’t take this wrong….I’m flattered by the concern. Everyone wants to be cared about and I’m no different, I guess. Anyway, I figured it would be easier to type all this shit out one time and just link people to the story instead of playing question and answer via messenger all night.
Alright, so about ten years ago I started dropping stuff all the time. My left hand would just go into a really short violent tremor and I’d lose grip on whatever I had in it at the time. When I used a Keurig, nothing was more frustrating than dropping the morning’s first cup of coffee that you’d just spent a couple minutes waiting on….so I went back to brewing full pots at a time. Spill one, pour another….problem solved. Why go see a doc when a new coffee pot is only $20? I figured out a lot of work arounds to get me through the bad days, and then sometimes I could go days without a single episode. A couple years ago it started getting worse. I didn’t have any strength in my grip at times….and then the piercing pain set in at my elbow.
Y’all know the story that follows. Pills (which I won’t take), shots (which killed the pain but did nothing for the strength), tennis elbow straps, tens unit, x-rays, etc., etc., etc. All the while it progressively got worse….numbness set into my left fingers and spread down into the palm over time.
Just after the first of the year they sent me in for a new MRI and then sent me to see a sadistic little bastard who spends his days shooting electricity through people’s bodies to see how their nerves react. By the way…this hillbilly is a little broad at the shoulder….I do not fit in MRI tubes very well. Anyway….the diagnosis was a minor impingement of the ulnar nerve and a pretty bad case of carpal tunnel. The shoulder is too far gone….it needs replaced, but we’re not going to get into that for a couple more years as long as I can deal with it. But they decided they could do a scope on my elbow and a minor carpal tunnel procedure and give me a tune up and fix everything. Easy day, right?
Not so much. After they got into my elbow and started looking around the scope got shelved and the scalpel came out. Instead of a couple small incisions and a light brace, I woke up to this:
My four day recovery time before my stitches could come out turned into “DON’T Remove this wrap under any circumstances until you see us again in two weeks”. So I sat on my ass watching TV for two weeks. I couldn’t even hold a book open long enough to get through a page of it. I tried to type one-handed and found out that I suck at that. So….I started at season 1-episode 1 of “Justified” and re-watched the whole damn series again. A lot of swelling….a lot of uncomfortable nights….a lot of itchy healing going on at the surgery sites.
Two weeks later, they unwrapped me and we found this:
So….the ulnar nerve wasn’t impinged….it was crushed for almost 5cm between bone and bone fragments all held together by scar tissue that had developed there over the years. Doc asked repeatedly what I’d done to that elbow, and I kept telling him “nothing that I know of”….which wasn’t a lie….I’ve done a lot of “less than entirely intelligent shit” to that arm over the years but I don’t remember doing anything specifically traumatic to that wing. Doc thought I was bullshitting him…but I wasn’t. So…the rest of the story…..once they got in there and saw all the stuff they couldn’t see on the MRI, they detached a couple tendons, removed all the bone fragments and cleaned out the scar tissue….then they re-routed the nerve, found some solid material to reattach the tendons to and closed me up. The bottom line: My funny bone is no longer where it’s supposed to be….that nerve is now tucked away in my forearm somewhere instead of running along the back of the elbow.
See…..no big deal. Once all this swelling subsides and the incisions heal completely, I’ll be good as new.. Well, at least probably better than I’ve been in a decade. SO….everyone just relax. I’ll be back in form before ya know it. I’m already cutting grass and I used a weed-eater a couple days ago. This time next month I’ll be tossing firewood off of hillsides again.
Okay….a little more news on the Hillbilly and then I’m going to end this. I really don’t like talking about me. BUT…..I’m going back to school this fall to start working on my Master’s in Communications. I’m awaiting acceptance into Marshall’s Graduate Program and then I’ll start setting up my schedule. If everything works the way I’ve got it mapped out, I’ll finish up at the end of the Spring 2023 semester with a M.A. in Communications, a graduate minor in History and I’ll have my Post-Grad certificate in Appalachian Studies. The goal is to become an adjunct professor somewhere….these kids need a voice of reason in the pile of shit they’re being fed every semester….I’m going to go try to be that voice.
So…..now you’re caught up….the kid was broke and got fixed and he’s decided to start chasing higher education.
Now….get back to your lives…..there’s nothing interesting going on here.
And SMILE, dammit.