At the end of last year the cast came off my wrist. It was stiff and unmoving - and filthy. You know how your skin looks when it's had something pressed in it for awhile? It was also vaguely misshapen. I had almost no grip strength, and there was a comically absurd mismatch between my forearms. I tested myself slowly at the gym - I didn't want to hurt myself, but I wanted to know what I could actually do.
It wasn't much.
Things as basic as twisting a screwdriver, even without any torque, were taxing. I couldn't do a bicep curl because I couldn't put pressure on my wrist in that direction - I could do a hammer curl instead. There were a lot of substitutions going on. At work I slowly pulled myself back into doing some actual work outside my desk, but doing anything with any substance or merit caused an ache that took a day to subside.
One fun fact about my job is that many of the operations are ambidextrous. I switched most of them to left handed operation and I was able to get things done. Trouble is, you're supposed to go back and forth to prevent strain. I couldn't, so I didn't, which caused a strain on my left shoulder.
Suddenly, I wasn't doing much again anymore. I have a small team at work (literally one other person) and this person quit, so I had to do everything myself. It wasn't what I would call fun. Long story short, my team is running at full capacity again (someone else was assigned to me) and I'm comfortably back being a shipping manager and assistant production manager.
Hold on, I was trying to blog about my arm.
I had a notepad in my phone where I kept track of what I was doing at the gym and how much weight I was doing it at, and I stopped updating it after the accident. I made another one when I started rebuilding my arm. It was almost embarrassing how little I could hold with it when I started, and it was wobbly. I gave myself some goals, and some others told me it would take a full year from that point before it would feel normal again.
I felt normal back in June. I checked the old notepad and discovered that I had recently surpassed every single part of it.
Now if only they were able to do something about my elbow. That thing pops like bubble wrap. Whatever. Happy New Year.
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