Day 5 Post-Op (Thu 11th March)

I used my left hand to hold a magazine while sat on the toilet!! This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s the first thing I’ve actually used that hand for in a good 5 months!! My god it felt good and perked me up quite a lot after yesterday! Thursday 11th March 2010, I will remember this day for a very long time, I hope it’s the start of a very successful recovery. I also slept about 4 hours overnight and then 4 hours in the morning! It put me behind on the exercises but my body obviously needs sleep so I’m just going with it.

The stiffness and slight increase in numbness happened again overnight, so it seems to be a regular thing I will just have to get used to. This is one of the main reasons I’m writing this, had I known about morning stiffness I could have avoided the whole trauma yesterday and hope someone will find all this information of use. It’s 2pm and I have only done one set of stretches, so better get on with some more! I have also just realised I am no longer getting twitches or spasms at all, just the odd pins and needles and slight numbness at the end of my two ulnar fingers and a general ache/stiffness in the arm. Pain level (as I haven’t mentioned it for a while) I would say is a 2/10, merely an annoying ache that I can get to disappear if I rest the arm in the right position.

No pain meds other than my regular MST taken today, I’m still trying to reduce what I take in the hope it reduces the side effects as well. I have noticed a slight increase in the amount of lost sensation in the palm of my hand, but by the end of the day I had done 8 sets of exercises and felt ok.