Journey from broken

So, between a shattered right arm and covid, I haven't been able to do much; however, I am making a start. Walking more, watching my diet, being busier around the house and garden. The hope is to lose weight and gain fitness back, starting with my shattered arm. The first thing was lifting weights, I had to get some strength back into the right arm and my hand. I have a nice collection of dumbells and a bench and this was the start of getting some use back into the arm.

So, while on holiday in Tenerife, I took a nasty fall and broke my radial bone, it was a nasty break that didn't heal. So my radius bone doesn't connect to my elbow at all, it is just floating around. When the plaster came off, I knew things were bad, my arm just flopped to one side and I said, "This is still broken". After an orthopaedic consultant looked at my CT and X-rays he decided that to operate would likely not solve anything and might even cause more issues than I already had - Bleeding, nerve damage, blood flow issues etc. So that was that, I walk around with a broken right arm now.

I couldn't straighten my arm at all, it was bent at a good 45-degree angle. I couldn't bend my arm, I was unable to put food in my mouth, or touch my face. I couldn't lift anything, even a blanket on the bed was too much for me to throw off my body with my right arm. I couldn't hold anything, bags and bottle were impossible to open. I was wondering how this was any different to having no right arm at all.

Over the months in plaster, I didn't do much of anything, my mind was in a bad place with falling over again, I no longer had a spare arm! Washing and taking care of myself was tough and I was being told that I might have this arm taken off after the time was up anyway. As you can imagine I put on some fat during this period. I went up to 20 stone 10 pounds that's a lot 290lb or 132kg (The last time I got on the scales in Feb).

So, I am out of plaster and my arm is pretty much as useless as when it was in plaster, I have to get this damn thing working. So I start with a small tin of peas, it took almost all I had to overcome the pain and do 5 biceps curls. I got some physiotherapy squeeze balls and even the softest of them defeated me. I started by thinking, "Oh, I'll train every other day", even though my physiotherapist had said, train once a week, all out and rest the remainder of the week. I was used to training a lot so I thought I could do more. I was wrong, there was no muscle there and the tendons and ligament connections were loose. I just couldn't do anything on that second day - so a week off it was.

After a few weeks, I moved from a can to just the dumbell bar, then to 1kg on the bar, then to 2kg etc. Twisting my wrist wasn't possible early on. I had to get a special keyboard in order to be able to type on the computer and get any work done.

The keyboard had to be split with a 20-degree angle for my right hand, even then it was painfully difficult and I could only type for a short period before it got too much.

Eating was a problem, I couldn't get my hand to my mouth, so things like sandwiches and burgers had to be cut into quarters and eaten that way, otherwise, everything just fell out. Pulling on underpants and trousers was a massive effort and I ended up with joggers rather than have to mess with zips and buttons.

It's March now, and it's been five months of weights and squeezing balls. I am back to typing with ease on an ordinary keyboard, I can use a can opener, I can dress and wash as good as I could before. I am still lifting the weights and have them set with 15kg on each arm. I have progressed through the squeeze balls and I am now on the toughest of them and things are almost as good as before.

At this point I honestly have no reason to be down, my arm doesn't straighten but it's 90% and I can now bend my arm to touch my ear and the back of my head. I can lift almost as well as before, though I doubt I will ever get back to when I was fit and my dumbells were 30kg each.

20 Stone 10 pounds, remember that number from the start of the blog? I am heading in the right direction now, I am 58 this year, so no youngster. I got on the scales and now I am 19 stone 9 lbs. A long way to go, but that's a good slope on the graph.

I have another meeting with my consultant end of this month, I think it will be time to start rowing again if he gives me the nod.