Spasticity and Splints - Part 13: Post Op 3

Moving around was very painful at times. As I said, I had no feeling from the elbow down because of the 24-hour nerve block they administered (I’m not sure if it was an intravenous drug or something else), so I didn’t have any pain apart from muscle aches in my legs from where I had been laying still for so long during the operation, but that didn’t last long.

The nerve block started to wear off the next morning. I don’t remember exactly what time the feeling started to come back but I think it was early morning. When my arm came back to life, every little movement hurt… My live-carer was absolutely amazing during my recovery and I couldn’t have done it without her.

As I said, the hospital prescribed me Oramorph for the pain, I was taking it just over 2 weeks. The Oramorph is a liquid form of morphine and it was a godsend for me as it worked within 5 minutes of me taking it. However, it did make me giggly and taking it with my mental health meds made me extra tired. Some people take it every 4 hours religiously but because I didn’t go overboard in taking it, the hospital prescribed me more when I was running out. I think I took about half of that bottle and then I went on to paracetamol because the pain was a bit more manageable. I stopped taking Oramorph on the 15^th November.

I had my arm in the sling for a while, even when I had the cast off because it restricted my arm movements so I didn’t hit it on things, but it also made my neck very sore where the strap rubbed. My mum bought me some padded covers for the strap to try and stop it rubbing on my neck. This worked to a certain extent but the cushion moved around a lot and it ended up on the other side of the strap, and caused the Velcro to scratch my neck. We tried to secure the cushion with safety pins but they kept coming undone and poking me.

As a result of this, I had to take the sling off while I ate to give my neck a break. My arm also stiffened up because it was immobilised, so this was another reason why I took the sling off. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep my arm still when I was doing things on my computer, so I kept the sling on then. After a while, my back started to hurt too because my body was twisting more due to the position of my arm and my postural issues.

I had to change the position I slept in too. Normally, I sleep on my left side, facing the wall, with my right arm on top of the left arm, with just one pillow for my head. I also have my quilt and weighted blanket up under my arms and around my shoulder. 

When I had my cast on, I was advised to use another pillow under my arm to keep it elevated. So, from 31 October through to about 20 November, I slept with another pillow. Having an extra pillow in bed was very irritating because I always found it difficult to get comfortable enough to sleep. The pillow got in my face a lot, and either my hand or elbow was hanging off it. I could never get it into the right position.