You guessed it, the surgery worked, just a bit differently than I thought. While my surgeon was cleaning out all the tendons and nerves, he discovered something odd. My nerve had been stretched out beyond repair, meaning that it was never gonna not move around after this surgery. It became a question of how painful and how often. As I progressed through the recovery process, the nerve would twitch, spasm but not jump over my elbow bone the way it used to, especially when I threw, which meant I could get back to practice. However, any subtle movement (voluntary and involuntary) came with excruciating nerve pain. The lesson I learned very quickly is once a nerve is irritated it stays pissed off. But, there was no jump.
I was able to get into a more comfortable routine. One similar to those of my teammates. A "true" scholar-athlete. It was the happiest I had been in a long time, aside from the pain. My doctors still had me on meloxicam to try and control the amount of inflammation that would inevitably squeeze my arm. But, the newest additions? Baclofen and gabapentin. Baclofen is a muscle relaxant, one that I desperately needed to help me get my hand, elbow, and shoulder muscles to stop spazzing and twitching just enough for me to sleep. As for the nerve pain, gabapentin was the weapon of choice. This helps with severe neuropathic chronic pain, essentially it rewires the way your body senses and reacts to nerve burns and pain stimuli. My dosage was high, 2 pills 3 times a day, daily until further notice. At least I was done with the hard painkillers, the side effects alone made me want to quit much sooner. The countless upset stomachs (not going for two weeks and then the opposite problem), headaches, nightmares, mood swings, insomnia, zero appetite ( counterintuitive when you need to eat to take meds), and yes the brain fog and gaps in memory. But my favorite part was getting my athletic self back, my true me. Even if the only kind of "athleticism" I could exert was through occupational and physical therapy.
Occupational therapy focuses on hands, wrists, and elbows. This was the best place for me to start. Since my wrist surgery, I continued to regain strength in my new model. However, my fingers and the overall strength of my hand were nonexistent. So, I had to go through these necessary steps of OT. First and foremost, desensitization and scar tissue work. My scars were SENSITIVE. Every scratchy or rough fabric felt like sandpaper against my skin, for both my wrist and elbow. And the cherry on top? Immense scar tissue build-up attached directly to bones. The only way to smooth it out is to either graston tool scrape it or use a piece of dysem to stick to the skin and twist.
Neither of these techniques are fun to experience, especially 3 times a week. Alas, as the weeks passed, my occupational therapist would then move on to resistance training. Introducing... the BTE machine. This thing would become my best friend. It was the only way I was able to build-up
any muscle I had lost due to my surgeries. It was also the only way I was ever going to get back on the field. So, three times a week I would stand in front of this machine and alternate which tool I would use. The main ones I had to focus on?
-doorknob
-steering wheel
-jar/ bottle top
- the ball
- the bat w/ the bat head attached to machine
Each week we would try to increase the amount of resistance against me. With this AND tedious occupational (hand) therapy, my arm was DONE. Not to mention, that I also had to squeeze in time to practice holding a pencil, writing, and typing. I struggled with finding the balance of using the muscles enough to get stronger, but also allowing myself to rest when my nerve was unhappy. And, this only meant that softball had to take a backseat on the list of priorities, which was NOT what I wanted. But, at the end of the day, my therapist would always remind me that I had to listen to my body and not my heart. Health over anything else.
This was the biggest adjustment for me, so physical therapy became my "softball". All the extra hours spent in the clinic would hopefully translate to endless hours on the field. I had to focus on getting the basic strength in my hand and arm back, especially for school. Typing and finger dexterity became priority number one to tackle. After about a month of pure focus on PT I was able to type for a whole 30 minutes! I know, this doesn't seem like much, but after those 30 minutes I was sore & tired, but not in excruciating debilitating pain. I could switch from speech to text and rest my hand, it was real progress in my eyes. Not to mention that I was also now able to tie my own hair back, brush my teeth, and do every other normal activity we take for granted. And the best part of it all? Yes, I was getting better, but I was also getting support from my team. With a new coach the positive energy boomed. To this day his words ring in my ears, " Get healthy jazz its the best way for you to give back to the team. They see your effort and heart".
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