Last time I blogged I was about to go in for the tendon transfer operation to be repeated. The operation found that I had ripped the lat dorsi of the screws in my arm and the whole procedure had to be done again. Unfortunately the procedure  was a lot more painful than the first operation. To strengthen the tendon a piece of tendon was taken from my thigh.  I woke up the next morning with an agonisingly sore leg – not what I expected after an operation to fix my arm. Interestingly Dr Wheel only warned me of the possibility of the need to take tendon from my leg as I lay in pre-op; I don’t think he wanted to give me time to think about it. Besides what do you say then – “No, I think I will leave!” – I don’t think so.

The other funny incident was that in pre-op I scratched the side of my nose to cause a trickle of blood. On arrival  in the operating theatre Dr Wheel was quick to spot this and suspected a skin cancer. So his generous offer to deal with that whilst under was accepted and a cut and few stitches later it was dealt with. Talk about value for money!! Turned out to be pre-cancerous, but better safe than sorry.

I spent three nights in hospital and found the whole process a bit demoralising. I was in a heap more pain than from the first operation and I still faced 8 to 12 weeks in the nightmare sling. Knowing that this time I had to be ultra careful, I was prepared to take no risks. So any thought of anything approaching exercise was out of the question. Even the poor dogs were not allowed to be walked.

It is now nearly nine weeks since the operation and when I saw Dr Wheel this week he was happy with the operation but any hope of getting out of “the sling” was put on hold for another 4 weeks. He has put arm therapist Mel in charge and she has begun the slow process of getting the arm moving. The first session was positive in that I could hold the arm in a position that I couldn’t before the operation. Mel is tough and there is no way I will get her to speed up the process!!

I am meant to be running the City to Surf in early August. It is 14km and at this stage it will be done at a very slow pace as the earliest I can see me running is mid June. I will get there some how. The days can’t go quick enough so I can do some training.