Things are going pretty well post-elbow surgery. I had to have my ulnar nerve released because it was trapped- it's like carpal tunnel syndrome, just in your elbow instead. It was a very fast surgery- my mom said she left me when they took me back, went out to the waiting room, got a cup of coffee and had just sat down and started working on the Wordle and the surgeon was out to talk to them. Since it was such a quick surgery, they didn't put me under general anesthesia, just sedated me and lidocained up my elbow. So I was out of there maybe an hour later and in much, much better shape than I usually am post-surgery because I do not do well with general anesthesia. I napped on and off at Mom and Dad's in front of the baseball game for a couple hours and then I was in good enough shape to drive myself home to sleep the rest of it off in my own bed.
(Recovery details below in case anyone is having this surgery and is curious)
Pain-wise, it actually hasn't been bad at all. They gave me enough pain meds for two days and otherwise it's been Tylenol and ice. The worst pain was actually in my shoulder right after surgery because they had my arm in a position that my still partially-frozen shoulder did not like at all. My elbow hurt, but not badly on Tuesday. Wednesday was probably the worst day because the compression dressing they had me in slipped a bit and uncovered my stitches and was holding my arm in an angle that I couldn't move my elbow much. But even then, I didn't need the afternoon pain pill- the Tylenol was doing fine. Thursday was a bit tough because I went back to work and was moving around more (I was able to take off the compression bandages Thursday morning so I could move my arm back into typing position) but I even forgot to take the second dose of Tylenol 8-hour on Friday. At this point, on Sunday, it mostly only hurts if I rest the incision site or the bruising on something, which is making sleeping a bit hard, but hopefully that will keep getting better. It does itch like hell, though, of course.
I did bruise spectacularly. I have two smaller bruises on my right arm from the IV sites (the one in my hand blew the vein, so they wound up using my elbow. That's pretty normal on me- I'm a very hard stick). But I had bright sunset colored bruises bigger than my hand on my left elbow. Most of those have gone greeny-yellow now, but there's still quite a bit of magenta on the edge.
I get the stitches out on Thursday and hopefully that will be the end of this saga!
