I think I can speak for all of you definitively when I say that I don’t believe any of you would want your arm cut up like they cut my arm up yesterday. Actually a fairly small incision, about an inch and a half, while the pregame said it could be as much as four or 5 inches. So that was one good thing. The problem was little things that grow inside of us naturally as we age, and they grow across the nerve canal, and they pinch it. They cut in, and they spread the muscles, and they use a scalpel, the size of a dental pic to cut those little growths from away from the nerve canal so wit can float freely. These things are minuscule, but apparently I had a big one about an inch and a half below my elbow, that was obviously crimping the canal. So they didn’t cut any more, they just probed up and down and cleaned up the rest of it.
Just to recap, over the last two years, I lost feeling in the pinky of my right hand, feeling on the pinky side of my ring finger, and my hand started to curl by itself, I lost half the strength, etc. And I am a righty.
After countless x-rays, MRIs, nerve continuity tests, etc., etc., they determined my nerve was pinched inside the nerve canal on the high side of my right forearm.
I got there at 6 AM, went under the knife at 7:30, and I was home at 10:30. That was pretty amazing.
While they were prepping me, they first give you the feel good drugs, then they did a nerve block in my armpit, and then I woke up in the recovery room. They’ve got my arm wrapped up with an ace bandage like a balloon, so it is in about a 135° position, with some kind of bandages underneath that.
Yesterday I couldn’t feel a thing anywhere in my arm, and I couldn’t move any of my fingers. When it got to be about 10 o’clock at night that started making me nervous. It was like having a piece of firewood hanging off your shoulder. It may sound strange, but it felt like a giant meat balloon that was about to pop, but no pain. I took a combination of Naprosyn and Tylenol, and that carried me to this morning.
This morning, I had feeling back, but not full feeling, and I had motion, but not full motion. By lunchtime, I could pretty much use my hand again, although I’m under instructions from the Almighty, not to put any stress on the muscles whatsoever. yesterday I couldn’t even open a pill bottle. I didn’t take a pain pill today until after 2 PM, and that was Tylenol and Naprosyn again. Very little pain, more of an annoyance.
The short term good news is, I have complete feeling in my ring finger again, and my pinky has that pins and Needles tingle. That may sound bad, but I’ve had no feeling at all for a year, so that’s a very good sign. All of the official commentary, and also what I’m experiencing is that it was very successful, but we won’t really know for a few weeks.
The high point of the experience was the church ladies who took me down there, brought me back, and prepared food for a few days.
One gal in particular, who is fairly well endowed, helped me get propped up in my recliner. She set me up with a few hours of whatever on the nightstand next to me, and then put pillows in the middle of the recliner so they would hold my arm in just the right position for no pressure one way or the other. The whole time she was doing it she was bending over me in this relatively low cut top. Now I’m thinking of hurting the other arm…
Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and 
