White Rose's Adventures

Recovery Update

It has been a little over 4 months now since I fell off the top of my loaded flatbed and shattered both my wrists and broke my nose. 4 months since I have been on my motorcycle or gone any where other than to the doctor or to the store. I am going nuts from the cabin fever! And now it looks like I am going to have more if it.

I saw Dr Waguespack yesterday afternoon. The x-rays show that my bones are still not fully healed. She told me that when I quit having pain when I use my wrists, then they will be healed. She says she wants me to try a bone growth stimulator on my wrists. She says that she has had success with it on legs and backs and that she feels that it will help me a lot.

I asked her if I could ride my motorcycle now. At first she said yes and cringed as she did. Then she asked me about what I would have to do to ride it and how much it weighed. I told her the truth. I ride a Road King and it weighs around 800 pounds. She had me demonstrate what I had to do with my hands to ride it. Then she told me no, not yet, but that she knows I am going to to what I want to do. I told her about putting a clutch assist on it and that it reduced the pull a great deal. She said that would be great exercise for my wrist, but she was more afraid of what would happen if I went down. I told her it is an 800 pound bike, if it goes over, I am going to let it go. I would let it go even if I had not shattered my wrist. Trying to fight it is a good way to get hurt with a bike that big. She wasn’t worried about that. She was worried that if I went down I would land on my wrists again. She explained that since they are not fully healed yet that if I landed on them that I would re-fracture them and probably never get to go back to work again.

My heart sank at this news. Riding my bike is more than just getting out and riding in the country for the fun of it. It is my therapy. Having my knees in the breeze and the wind in my face helps work everything out in my head. Who needs to go see a shrink it you have a motorcycle? Because nothing seems so bad after a ride on the bike. And now she says that I can’t ride yet. 4 months I have not been able to ride and now it is going to be longer! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now here is the kicker. Angela, the field nurse for my Workman’s comp, was not able to attend this appointment. So she sent Dr Waguespack the paperwork that she normally fills out at the end of each appointment. We talked about my job and what I have to be able to do to do my job. I think she finally got an idea of what I really do as a flatbedder. I told her that I had seen my boss a few weeks ago and he said that he didn’t want me to come back to work till I was 100%. On the paperwork it ask for an “projected release to work date”. She put down November 2009, 1 year from the date that I fell. My heart sank again.

I know that I have been kidding around about being out of work till after my trip to Sturgis in August. I know that Kay, my OT gal, has told me that it would take a year or more to get back to 100%. I know that when she added a 1 pound weight this week to one of my exercises that it hurts like hell to do it. I know that even though I have been doing all this stuff in my yard that I am not as far along as I thought I was. I know, I know, I know! I just thought that I would be back to work sooner, rather than later. Sitting around the house is driving me NUTS!