So sometimes a collar bone just doesn’t want to heal up and weld itself back together. It happens. What that means depends a lot on how the ligaments an whatnot are able to hold the bone in place. If it moves around too much, then it hurts, or sets up all sorts of grinding an popping that can be intolerable.

To help assess that, the doctor ordered some Xrays with me holding something reasonably heavy with my hanging down. The shoulder did fine with that, but my elbow was screaming because it had been bent up in the sling for 2 months and now had about 4kg pulling it straight.

Apparently my bone stayed put well enough that this might not be a problem. The disconnect in the bone might result in a slight, maybe 10%, loss of strength in that shoulder, which, according to the doctor, wouldn’t be noticeable unless I was pumping iron or something (I might develop a right-turning tendency in flight and have to compensate with a left yaw).

The plan now is to get the arm back into service with some PT (Physical Therapy, or what my co-worker calls Pain and Torture). During the first session I could see some immediate improvement in my range of motion. The doctor made use of the arm sling optional: if the arm gets tired and needs to rest, I can use the sling, or if I’m in a situation where my attention might need to be elsewhere and I might therefore make a sudden inadvisable move. In the meantime, I’ve got exercises to do at least daily to stretch and improve the range of motion and to improve strength.

Stay tuned…

“What is the sound of one wing flapping?” Since both wings are almost always flapped at the same time, the answer is “pretty much like two wings flapping, just less so”. But when you don’t have full use of both hands, things get a bit more complicated.

My recent injury left me unable to do much with my right arm. I could use the hand, but only if I could get it to what I wanted to handle without moving my arm. There’s a lot of things we do that call for two hands, and if you’d asked me six months ago what would be a problem and what wouldn’t, I would not have gotten it half right. I’ve developed a good bit of empathy for those who really don’t have both hands.

There are, of course, a lot of things that aren’t a problem because they just don’t require two hands: opening a door, using the TV remote control, using a phone, typing (if you’re not in a hurry), eating a sandwich, etc…

Then there are things that can be done, but require some modification. Getting a glass of water: you can’t just hold the glass under the faucet and open the tap. You have to turn on the water, then pick up the glass and fill it, set it down, then turn off the water (this also grates on my sense of resource efficiency). Carrying stuff into the other room might require multiple trips, where as before you could just pick up the laptop, its power supply, and your yogurt and head off. Opening a door might not be a problem, but carrying stuff through that door might be. These things require extra planning.

If it’s your dominant hand that’s out of service, things like writing and eating become problematic. While I’ve gotten better at filling in crossword puzzles with my non-dominant hand, at first I had to be very deliberate about holding and moving the pencil (no, I don’t do crosswords in ink). I thought carefully about how I wrote normally and tried to replicate that, in mirror image, with my other hand. Eating was somewhat less of a problem, but still took some mental effort.

Speaking of eating, you can’t use a knife and fork at the same time. Most people think it’s fine to pick up a chicken leg with their fingers and chew into it. I’ve come to believe that applies to steak too.

Hair can be a problem if it needs more than a bit of combing.

I’ve reconsidered the necessity of some things. For example, my home office has two computers, two cell phones, a desk clock, and a clock radio, all of which are perfectly happy to give me the time of day. So why bother with a watch if I’m going to be there all day? Similarly, I’m not going out anywhere, the cat doesn’t care what I wear (or don’t), so as long as my webcam isn’t aimed to low….

And then there are things that are just not an option. Cleaning and cutting up vegetables for my salads requires two hands. Hauling my trash to the landfill. Mowing the grass (my mower is light enough I could probably maneuver it ok with one hand, but it takes two to start it). These are things that I’ve had to rely on others to do for me, and I’m grateful for those people, which includes paid services (those people who can’t work from home during this pandemic) as well as neighborhood volunteers. A tip ‘o the hat to Joe, Deb, Bud, David, Sharon, David, and the others whose names I didn’t think to write down and apologize to for not doing so, for jumping right in when word got around.