The Pictures are Here!

This X-ray is from November 3, four days after the crash. It's a front view of my left shoulder. You can clearly see the broken clavical. It shattered into two large pieces, left and right, and a large, floating piece in the middle. There were also a few other splinters of bone in there as well. Click on the image to see the full size. It's quite impressive, as you can clearly see the need for surgery.


This X-ray is from December 3, twenty-four days after the surgery. In this X-ray, you can see where they installed a zipper for easy access to the inside of my chest cavity, should there be any further complications. The plate, as I said before looks more like something from an Erector Set. I can't quite decide if the screws have Phillips heads or Torx six point star heads. They are, however, clearly self-tapping screws. I'm surprised that the ones sticking out through the bottom of the bone don't get caught on other soft tissue inside my chest cavity as I move around. Maybe there is just cartilage or something under there. If you click on the image to view the full size, you can see the now healing crack where the middle fragment was screwed to the Left and Right pieces. I still can't get over the fact that that thing is inside my body! It's weird to see a picture of it, so clearly, too! I've got other pictures of my hand and wrist, and a few other views of my shoulder. These were the best two pictures. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I think they are going to be my new desk top background on my work computer.

I started Physical Therapy on Wednesday. I negotiated down to only 1 visit each week instead of two, as it's so stinkin far to drive! They gave me a whole regiment of excercises that I have to do for about an hour twice a day. I understand now why so many people don't do all their PT homework. I feel like my mobility is already at about 90%. Though, my left shoulder is way, way higher than my right. They've been off since high school to varying degrees, depending on the day, but now they are really bad. My PT is confident that we will be able to correct most of that. He says it's caused by the muscles of my back being in a sort of permanent cramp on the left side. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I'm supposed to be using my arm like normal, as much as possible, just as long as it doesn't cause any sharp, bone-on-bone kind of pain. Muscle and tendon pain is fine, even good, but the other kind isn't. He said that I should be sore every day as I continue to stretch and work the muscles for the next four weeks. But, I should stop and avoid activity that causes the other kind of pain. I think my left arm and shoulder are going to be way stronger and more flexible than my right by the end of all this. Thanks for watching and thanks for caring.