As I mentioned before, the goals of my most recent surgery were twofold. The primary reason is obvious – get the evil, painful wires out. As a secondary benefit, the surgeon was going to try and make the massive ugly scar on my arm look a bit better. Apparently it is hard to get a clean scar on a road-rash covered elbow, so the marks on my arm after surgery one were pretty gnarly, at best. Plus, its hard to regrow skin on an elbow, since the cut goes right over the bend in your arm. Lots of stretching equals larger scarring. Yay fun! Since the skin was pretty well healed up this time around, the doc figured he could make the arm look at least a little better (mind you I would have gone in either way…those dang wires needed to come out!).
The surgery itself was pretty uneventful. Started relatively close to on time, got out the same day. Took pain meds for a few days, but overall this second round was much easier than the first. Not having a busted collarbone probably helped with that. They sent me home in an ace wrap and a sling (hooray for no plaster!), with strict orders to change the dressing in exactly four days. Good thing I’m an old pro at one-armed bandaging, right?
Two weeks after surgery, I was scheduled back into Kaiser to have my stitches taken out. Except when I get there I’m told that I have internal stitches and there’s nothing to remove. Sweet. Glad I had to give up an afternoon and receive several threatening (reminder) phone calls for that. (Seriously, I think the Kaiser appointment reminder people are mob-trained or something. They scare me!) On the bright side, my wound “looks great” and I was cleared to resume all activities without restriction …washing and lotioning included. Woohoo! All in all, a successful second surgery.
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