Spasticity and Splints - Part 11: Post Op 1 (Showering)

I arrived home around 8 o’clock that night and I was absolutely pooped! I was also still hungry, so I had a tin of Ravioli. After that, I just sat and chilled before going to bed.

I can’t remember if it was the next morning or the morning after, but I got up and attempted to have a shower… For those of you who don’t know, I have a shower chair. It’s quite basic, the only thing that isn’t basic is the pommel. Due to my Cerebral Palsy, my knees gravitate towards each other. This is called scissoring. I have a built-in pommel in my cushion for my manual wheelchair, and removable ones for my electric wheelchair and my shower chair.

I don’t remember what day it was but it was when the nerve block had worn off, but overnight, my cast had slipped down and my fingers weren’t showing out of the bottom of the cast. The stitches were also showing out of the top of my cast, so my mum took my carer and I to the hospital. I wanted my carer to come for moral support and cheer me up because I felt quite stressed – we get along extremely well with each other.

We arrived at the hospital, we didn’t have to wait long before I was seen. All three of us, went into a room spoke to a very nice nurse who repositioned my cast and wrapped my arm in clean bandages. When the cast was moved, my arm was able to move freely, but that hurt like hell! I’ve never felt anything like it! I think it was so painful because my hand and arm was held in one position for so long.

My sister brought me a waterproof sleeve to put over the cast so that I could still have a shower… Or so we thought!  I move around more when I sit in my shower chair because I am unable to hold my body still by fixing – fixing is where someone holds their body still by holding another object or holding a part of their body against something else. When the nerve block wore off, my whole arm was extremely painful and even the slightest knock or movement sent sharp stabbing pains down from my elbow, to my fingertips. I was in tears just having a shower. It was so painful that I took Oramorph before I started having a wash. As I was showering, the water was getting into the sleeve.

As I couldn’t have a shower, this also meant that I couldn’t wash my hair in the shower either, however, my mum thought of a great idea… On Amazon, you can buy these handy hair wash caps. They already have shampoo inside them, so all you need to do is make sure that all your hair is inside the cap and massage the head and the shampoo comes out of the cap and into your hair.

The wash caps were very handy and quite good. I would recommend them to anyone who can’t have a hair wash in the shower; however, I don’t think they’re meant to be used as a permanent solution because after a while, my hair started to look greasy even when I used the caps.

Another downside to the caps is the noise. To most people, it wouldn’t matter if the cap was over their ears; they would just carry on, but for me, it’s a different story. As many of you may know, I am autistic and have sensory problems, and I don’t really like having my hair cut because of the feeling and the sound of the scissors snipping by my ears. I don’t like having my hair washed either because of the feeling of hands massaging my head.