My healing journey so far
[Caution: There will be post-surgery photos in this post so if you’re more squeamish than me, don’t look!]
Hello hello! I survived my arm surgery despite how utterly terrified I was. Spent the couple of days prior actually shaking a little bit. But, it was ok. Not especially fun, but necessary and ok.
My memories for a lot of the day are actually a little bit fuzzy. I’ve definitely been sedated for things before, but I don’t think I had a general anaesthetic before this (unless I did and literally forgot). I remember having to leave the house so early in the morning; I was originally under the impression that I was referred to Salisbury hospital for this because it was close to where we used to live at the time, but apparently, it’s the only plastics department around even for people as far as the Bailiwick of Jersey, so although it’s expensive to get there, it’s our only option. I guess I can say I’ve had plastic surgery now, lol.
The last thing I really remember before surgery is lying there and the absolute pain of the anaesthetist putting a hand cannula in. Hand cannulas suuuuuck. Then I had a bit of a woozy panic and they were like, oh she’s going clammy, and I was thinking, yeah dude I told you I was squeamish! And that’s kind of it.
I remember slowly becoming aware that I existed, hours later in the recovery ward. People said it would be like blinking and suddenly being somewhere else, with no awareness of having been out, but I was aware that time had passed. However, I would blink and see 20 mins go by on the clock. And I was like, wtf. That kept happening for about three days after surgery actually, I would lose pockets of time, which was a real pain in the ass when I was trying to watch Law & Order or read a book and I would suddenly have no idea what I was looking at. I guess that’s why the post-op instructions include “Do not do anything requiring thought or judgement for 48 hours.”
I also remember hearing it’s not possible to dream under anaesthetic, because it’s not sleep, but I feel like I did dream some bonkers imagery, although I don’t actually remember what it was? Or it was just from me waking up later, idk.
And of course when I woke up, my arm was wrapped in very thick, immobilising bandages. And my God, the pain was rough. I heard that the pain for this surgery was bad, and the people who said that were not wrong. Apparently they gave me fentanyl, but it didn’t make the tiniest bit of difference!
I also struggled getting some muscles to co-operate. My legs were very asleep when I first tried to go to the toilet. My bladder, also, took ages to respond, and I’m still having a bit of trouble in that regard. It’s been weeks though so anaesthetic should definitely be out of my system. My fingers and nails were also very, very orange, which I assume was iodine or something similar.
I can tell you that the original issues with my hand and arm did seem instantly resolved, and the pain was from a mix of, having such a massive incision, relocated nerves being aggravated, and ligaments and other things feeling irritated from having been spaghettied-around inside. The incisions themselves weren’t painful for much longer, but the surrounding tissues have been so so sore and sensitive.
I have no memory of the consultant surgeon actually speaking to me after surgery, so hopefully I didn’t do anything weird because of the anaesthetic, but I will eternally fear I did.
A day or two after surgery, I could feel that my wrist, where they did the median nerve release, was bleeding under the bandages. Obviously, we couldn’t really peek at it because the bandages were so thick. But I got very squeamish about it, and fainted in the bathroom and hit our shower door. I was suddenly aware of being on the floor, and everything hurt, especially my ass. The shower door is now wonky on its track, but that’s the best case scenario, because it could’ve smashed or I could’ve hit my head, so really I was lucky.
The next day we did unravel the bandages, but I nearly passed out on seeing the stitches. I got better at looking at the incisions as time went on. We eventually split the original bandage so it wasn’t one long thing covering the whole arm where it wasn’t necessary.
At my wound inspection a week later, everything was confirmed to be fine, but a problem emerged; I was told I’d been given dissolvable stitches, and that seemed to be true on my arm, but on my palm and wrist, they used the non-dissolvable ones, so we had to make another expensive trip to have them removed. It truly do be like that.
They gave me much better, lighter dressings, a pad on my palm and some tape along my arm. I did have to replace the pad a few times, until I eventually just used some of the spare tape they gave me, and that stayed on! Sadly I still wasn’t allowed to wash my right hand until the stitches were removed.
Not being able to use one hand definitely sucks. It makes everything that little bit more difficult. If Will wasn’t available to help me open my contact lens pods, I had to use my teeth and get a mouthful of saline. In the shower we had to use a sleeve, which is pretty painful to put on. The whole right side of my upper body was so sensitive after surgery, even Will scrubbing my right armpit made me feel ill. Thankfully that decreased in time.
I started using my computer again sooner than I should have done; you probably know that I am very stubborn. I was going insane not having anywhere to put my thoughts, as I couldn’t hold a pen or type. I was leaving voice notes for people quite early on, but I also had limited voice for a couple of days, probably because a tube had been shoved somewhere.
I’m stubborn. You might remember that I used to faint so much more, because I refused to sit down when I started feeling POTSy. For some reason I thought using the computer would be a great idea. Even now, I am still typing in short bursts. It’s not just a pain issue, it’s a strength issue. My infamous typos are much more frequent, mostly in the form of missing letters, apparently I’m just not managing to hit the keys properly.
The biggest disaster was when I tried to hold a game controller and do some Fallout dailies. I turned the vibration off but my God, something about that position hurts so much. So I’m gaming in shorts bursts too, and I think the bursts are getting longer each time, but the pain is BRUTAL.
I still can’t do everything with my right hand. Still can’t hold a pen as long as I’d like (although frankly, I don’t think my post-surgery writing was too bad, all things considered!). Sometimes I will do a movement that was fine a minute ago, but when I do it again, my wrist seizes up about it. Apparently I can expect pain to continue for 2-4 months, oof.
I’m very grateful to the surgeons for having solved my hand numbness issues, I’m still dealing with some non-responsiveness but I think that’s because the nerves are irritated and not because the surgery failed in any way. Healing takes time. I think I’ve been doing real good, not only because surgery is scary and exhausting, and I was so disoriented afterwards, but also because I’m still in migraine town and waiting for my injections again!
Getting the stitches out was a lil bit grim. I was worried that, because I have EDS, the sutures would pull through the skin. That happened with my finger. However this time, it seems my palm just straight-up started growing new skin over them! The knots were either quite close to or in the skin, and as you gotta have a blade put right on the skin to cut them, it was uncomfy. I just tried not to look but curiosity did get the better of me for some of them. And they sting a bit as they’re pulled out. My hand hurt more than I expected when I got home, I guess the stitches were providing more support than I thought.
The nurse pointed out that a lot of the skin on top is actually dead, and I should peel it off at some point otherwise it will just harbour bugs (by which I hope she meant bacteria and stuff, not insects lol). Now, I am a bit of a skin-picker, but, I was queasy at the idea of peeling a surgical wound.
My husband has of course been a Godsend. I struggled a lot with frustration in the first week, because I hate losing independence. I’ve learned to accept things like, I can’t cook my own meals, and I can’t get very far without a wheelchair (although, about twice a year I do have a cry about the fact I can’t do Tomb Raider things IRL, lol). But when I can do even less than normal in my already limited life, I get cranky. Even sleeping was difficult because there was no good way to position my arm.
It’s been a lot, but I can touch my hand and actually feel it now. Just gotta get through the pain and the weakness and hope I will be able to do things like, push door handles soon.
Before surgery, I had the urge to sort my planner pen out. I had been going through a pack of plain black gel pens for a couple of years. But I realised I was unsatisfied with pages of only black ink. I remembered when I used to use those multicolour Bic pens! But, the green ink has very little use for me. I knew I would do better with purple, black, blue, and red. Finding a Bic pen in these colours was surprisingly expensive. And I was like, dang, is it not possible to get a custom pen made or something? How is this so difficult.
Well, thanks to a buddy, I discovered a part of the stationery world I was somehow unaware of. I suppose, in my defence, I’ve always been more interested in the planner pages and covers themselves, rather than being a particular nerd for pens. But yes, you can indeed get a custom pen, and it’s not as much of an ordeal as you’d think!
After a bit of research I wound up getting a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto, and ink in the colours Violet, Black, Blue, and Red, each in 0.4mm. You buy the pen case and then fill it with whatever you want. They also come in 3 and 5-ink versions, but I thought the 5 might be a bit thicc.
Of course the pen arrived only a couple of days before surgery, so I didn’t get much time with it before I then couldn’t hold a pen at all. Apparently I should’ve waited at least 2 weeks before trying to hold a pen, but it was definitely a little under one week when I did. But my God, gripping it fucking hurts. It tugs on some tendons inside that absolutely object.
With any luck, I’ll be able to keep refilling this same pen for the rest of my life, though I’ll probably have to replace it a time or two.
An issue I have is that, people always end up taking my pens. Even though there’s a whole pot full of pens in here, people will come and grab the one in my planner pen loop. Even people I barely know, when my husband is having a game night, they run off with my pen. Sometimes pens then get misplaced. It would be a bit more of a disaster if they did it with this one. But, hopefully they’ll remember, Letti’s Coleto! and it will make its way back to me.
I also got some lil clear stamps so that I can eventually transition away from using so many planner stickers, it will probably take me a few years though lol.
Fishing in Fallout is certainly interesting. It’s not as bad as Stardew Valley fishing, which kind of makes you lose the will to live. I can do it largely with just my left hand, I’ve just got to hit a button to start reeling the fish, and then rotate my left joystick a bit. It can be quite relaxing and you can sort of do it on autopilot after a while. Although the odds for the different fish are insane, and it can take 200 attempts to get one fish that you need 3 of for a challenge.
And yes, there has been a Resident Evil 9 announcement, but I’m trying not to look into it much so I can enjoy being surprised by everything.
- My healing journey so far - July 1, 2025
- I’m having arm surgery! - June 10, 2025
- Nephilim, a giant bee, and confusing plants - May 20, 2025