Normal
It's crazy how something that happens so quick like a car accident, cutting your finger preparing dinner, injuring yourself at the gym and so on can really change your life and the things that are important to you all in an instant. This was exactly what happened to me a few days prior to this day in 2011 when I ruptured my distal bicep tendon in my left arm.
Back In The Groove
I had just returned to work after a long vacation in St. Lucia with Cicely and was slowly getting back into the day-to-day routines and preparing for the upcoming Christmas holiday. I should mention that this was the first year that my company was trying something new that most were pretty excited about, others not so much because it forced them to use vacation time, but all in all it was a nice "forced" break. We were closing the doors from Christmas to New Years so everyone would have time off and not have to worry about missing updates and deadlines at work and could instead focus on family and friends as everyone should when away from the office. Little did I know that this would not be the case for me.
Snap Crackle Pop
It's 2:15 in the afternoon and I am in the gym working out, getting my second wind for the last half of my workday. I was 40 minutes into my workout so I was completely warmed-up and my muscles were working as hard as they always do, not lifting super heavy, instead focusing on form and repetitions as I had been doing for the past 6 months. I figured that since I had been working out, not missing a single week, for over 15 years it might not be a bad idea to start focusing more on that vs. explosive amounts of heavy lifting.
I glance over at the clock, stretching between reps and thinking I have one set of 3 left to do and that it was my preacher curls, one of my favorites since your arms look a bit like "Popeye" afterward so it was always fun and gratifying.
I finished up my stretches and grabbed a 25 pound weight and did my first set of 15 preacher curl reps. Slow and controlled as I always do, first set done. Rest and stretch for a minute. Ok time for my second set, have some good music coming through my ear-buds and thinking about the upcoming holiday and that I may skip the gym the next day and give myself a reward before the holiday. Focus! Slow and controlled, counting my reps 7, 8, 9, 10, eeelevvvennn--
.......... suddenly in the blink of an eye my left arm goes completely limp and I hear over my music the sound of industrial strength Velcro tearing, mixed with popping bubble wrap and at the same instant I watch my bicep muscle roll up near my shoulder! Umm this cant be good I thought, so I re-racked my weights and headed to the locker room to get back into my street clothes. Yea I really did re-rack my weights and everyone gives me shxt about that, hey I like a neat tidy gym ok.
Emergency Room
I changed and went back to my cube and headed over to Cicely's cube to show her my arm and ask her opinion. At this time I am convinced its a really bad sprain or something like that. She suggests that we go and ask the trainer in the gym so we do. Heather, the trainer, see's it and really has no idea because its not something you see everyday and it just looks gnarly, painful and not the way an arm is supposed to look.
This injury is actually more along the lines of 1 of every 100k of them are this type (oh boy lucky me). Heather suggests, as any good trainer would, that I ice it and do the normal injury cures that make the most sense while being conservative. So Cicely and I headed back to the studio, but by this time my arm was starting to hurt quite a bit more so I made the decision to leave work and head to the emergency room and get it checked out.
We get to the ER and lucky for me its not busy at all. We get in within about 15 minutes and see the doctor on duty and without hesitation he tells us that its a ruptured distal biceps tendon. I asked, how can you know that without any x-rays or anything and he says that its one of those injuries you just know once you have seen them before and that I need to get in for surgery as soon as possible if not immediately because time is of the essence with this injury for it to heal properly. He writes me a prescription for some pain medication to get me through until surgery and hands me a referral for a surgeon that does this type of repair (there are not many that do it well I guess). I get home, still a little freaked out, the pain pills are really kicking it so I call it a night.
Next Day
The next morning my arm is turning black and blue and hurting pretty dam bad. I call the surgeon only to find out that he is out for a week, remember its the holidays, shxt what now? So being a little freaked out because the ER doc and everyone I have talked to tells me that I need to get this repaired immediately so I start looking for another surgeon that may be able to get me in sooner - no luck! Then I remember, my nephew had to have surgery on his wrist / hand and that the surgeon was amazing and extremely well known / sought after for tendon and ligament work. I doubt I can get in but I will give it a try so I call my sister, get the number and call the office. I tell the receptionist what is going on and she puts me on hold. here we go I am thinking to myself, thumbing through the phone book for other offices to call. She is trying to determine the best way to tell me there is no way to get me in with such short notice. To my surprise, she gets back on the phone and asks if there is any way I can be down to the office in about an hour, umm hell yea I can - I thank her and hang up.
Office Visit
We get to the office and get in almost immediately to see the doctor / surgeon. He looks at my arm, asks me a few questions and asks me what I am doing Tuesday (it was Friday). I said nothing, do I need to come back for a followup or something? He says no, I want to schedule you for surgery but we need Monday to authorize it, get you fitted for a brace and so on. So that is what I did and I will tell you that that weekend before was the longest weekend every and not in a good way, even with the pain medicine.
Tuesday 12-13-2011
Finally Tuesday morning, 5:00 a.m. and I am at the surgery center getting prepped for surgery. Approximately 30 minutes later I am in the surgery room and being asked to count backwards from 10 while they give me a little "cocktail". I do 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, ............
All Done
I wake up to the soft buzz of machines all around me and the chatter of nurses and Cicely's voice. I look at my arm that is now in this massive sling, wrapped in bandages with all kinds of wires and electrodes coming out of it. This would be my new "normal" for 4 to 6 months.
Physical Therapy
Fast forward about 6 weeks and I am now in physical therapy for the next 12+ weeks, 4 times a week which would slowly taper off the last couple of weeks until I was released by my doctor. I was not allowed to drive, lift anything at all, normal day to day tasks took twice as long, although thank goodness it was not my right arm or it would have been that much worse.
Physical therapy was rough, really rough actually and very slow going. It's amazing how long it takes to learn to do things you have always done without giving them a second thought. I was fortunate that I had 2 of the most amazing therapist around. I am not just saying this, but they truly are and actually the only 2 my surgeon will use which in itself says a lot.
I was told there were several things I would probably not be able to fully do again so I needed to know that up front. Things like fully extend my arm, rotate my wrist in the motion you would use to turn a screwdriver, touch my finger tips to my shoulder and so on. I had no doubt this was true, I could barely twist my wrist using my right hand without excruciating pain and it had already been well over a month.
Normal
Once again fast forward to the end of physical therapy and my doctor releasing me. I was extremely aggressive during physical therapy, my therapist were also patient, helpful and knowledgeable. I worked on my motions and exercises day and night, any chance I got I would take off the massive 8 pound brace and do some exercises and physical therapy.
The outcome; to everyone's surprise, myself included was that I was able to do everything I was able to before the accident. My arm does still get tight and sore when its cold or if I overuse it doing yard-work, keeping it in a bent position for too long and related. But it works and all of that blood, sweat and tears for months paid off.
I was still only allowed to lift a maximum of 7 pounds at the time that the doctor released me and was to increase it as I felt necessary every 3 to 5 weeks by a couple pounds - slow and controlled.
Present Day, Today
So today, 12-13-12 I skipped the gym, no reason to find out if it would be a good day or not. I don't really want another holiday filled with pain pills and an uncomfortable brace. You can never really understand the pain of something like this and the mental battles that you go through because it takes so long to heal unless you have been through it yourself, and I would not recommend it. Don't get me wrong, there are so many things that are much worse than this and I get that, but for me, this was the worst thing I have experienced in my life and that is saying a lot, I am a pretty tough dude.
So tonight its going to be dinner and relaxing with Cicely and Oggy. My goal this holiday season is to have both arms filled with cheer and joy (better known as Jack and Coke) while ringing in 2013, surgery and pain free!
Peace Out
That is all for today, I could go into some serious detail about this accident, it was one of the hardest I have ever dealt with so I could not resist sharing the 1 year anniversary with anyone that may want to know what I was doing one year ago today. 'Til tomorrow . . . .
Photo: Distal bicep tendon rupture illustration
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