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Vfrjim2002 Went Down Today


WeazyBuddha

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+1 on the positive state of mind. You are finding the healing power of the VFRD family like I did. Great to hear the doc's optimism! :fing02:

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  • 3 months later...
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Update: it has been a wild ride

Well, the right wrist rebuild went well. By late May I was well into getting it rehabbed and had the left side rebuild scheduled for mid June. Unfortunately, my son came by the house the last Friday in May to use my miter saw and air nailers. I went out to the garage to observe, we talked a bit and I walked across the garage to grab a chair. As I stepped over the piece he was working on he picked it up, hanging my left foot in the air. I hop stepped with the right trying to regain my balance and hung the right foot on an air hose.

I ended up parallel to the floor, 3 feet in the air. Landed on my left shoulder and shattered it. Broke the upper humerous in several places and the socket into 4 pieces. The surgeon who has been working on the wrists rebuilt the shoulder with an 8" plate holding the humerous together and a series of sutures and straps holding the socket/rotator cuff in place. She (the surgeon) is an artist. It looked good until I picked up a post op infection.

As it stands now, I'm 2 weeks into a 6 week stint on IV antibiotics under the eye of an infectious disease (ID) specialist and 5 weeks into a 12 week healing cycle for the shoulder. The big fly in the ointment is the ID Dr is adamant that we can't completely knock out the infection until we pull the plate out of the shoulder and my ortho surgeon wants to leave the plate in for at least 10 months. Neither wants to open the left wrist until they're completely sure the infection is gone, so we can't tackle that until the plate comes out next spring. Hard to say what this means for my motorcycling future. I will be selling the VFR, however, and I'll decide what to do next next spring or summer. If you know anybody who wants a good '02 at a great price, send them my way.

On the upside, Im very confident in the doctors and am getting a lot a help from friends and family. Thank you guys for all the support.

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Guest Recalcitrance

Prayers for a smooth(er) recovery. Unfortunate series of events, but sounds like you have a good team helping you heal up. God speed.

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Update: it has been a wild ride

Well, the right wrist rebuild went well. By late May I was well into getting it rehabbed and had the left side rebuild scheduled for mid June. Unfortunately, my son came by the house the last Friday in May to use my miter saw and air nailers. I went out to the garage to observe, we talked a bit and I walked across the garage to grab a chair. As I stepped over the piece he was working on he picked it up, hanging my left foot in the air. I hop stepped with the right trying to regain my balance and hung the right foot on an air hose.

I ended up parallel to the floor, 3 feet in the air. Landed on my left shoulder and shattered it. Broke the upper humerous in several places and the socket into 4 pieces. The surgeon who has been working on the wrists rebuilt the shoulder with an 8" plate holding the humerous together and a series of sutures and straps holding the socket/rotator cuff in place. She (the surgeon) is an artist. It looked good until I picked up a post op infection.

As it stands now, I'm 2 weeks into a 6 week stint on IV antibiotics under the eye of an infectious disease (ID) specialist and 5 weeks into a 12 week healing cycle for the shoulder. The big fly in the ointment is the ID Dr is adamant that we can't completely knock out the infection until we pull the plate out of the shoulder and my ortho surgeon wants to leave the plate in for at least 10 months. Neither wants to open the left wrist until they're completely sure the infection is gone, so we can't tackle that until the plate comes out next spring. Hard to say what this means for my motorcycling future. I will be selling the VFR, however, and I'll decide what to do next next spring or summer. If you know anybody who wants a good '02 at a great price, send them my way.

On the upside, Im very confident in the doctors and am getting a lot a help from friends and family. Thank you guys for all the support.

Sorry to hear the bad news adding up, hope for a speedy recovery. My 02$ would be to ask the docs if they can ensure you bone profile looks good or not, like checking vit D, pth, plus some other stuff based on your age and other risk factors etc. Just hearing all these fractures sounds too much bad luck :( .

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That sucks man! Like rubbing salt in the wound or adding insult to injury. Please stop hurting yourself already!

Ditto, stop hurting yourself will you!

Heal quickly again!!!

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Hi Jim,

Just caught this thread today, sorry about your year of trials! I did a little of the "pinned hand and bone rebuild" stuff a few years after my road racing days to get things working better. Teaching motorcycle classes with a pinned clutch hand was an adventure, especially the demo rides! (The clutch was great therapy after the pins came out, though. Every shift was painful for a while, but I got range of motion back really fast, and riding was much more fun than sitting in a physical therapy office!!!) So don't give up. Keep that dream of riding again at the top of your list. It will happen. :fing02:

I have one suggestion for your wife... Get the Deluxe Walmart Baby Gate installed on that garage door right away. Get the TALL one that Jim cannot hurdle or high jump over, and maybe an ankle collar with audible alarm, in case he figures out another way to get in there. :comp13:

Jim, STAY OUT OF THE GARAGE!!! You can practice for the American Ninja Warrior Show in a year or two when you are better and have all the appendages you need for gymnastics classes, or at least are able to get back into the gym. :warranty:

I hope all the support and positive energy from these great folks on VFRD have helped you stay positive on those difficult days. I think all the guys and girls here would do whatever they can to help and support you when you are ready to get back on the bike, me included. Just let us know when you need help. :tour:

Best of luck with your healing. I'm prayin for ya!

Kevin

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Very sorry to hear of your setback Jim. Best wishes for a speediest recovery. I hope you can maintain a positive state of mind.

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Wow, sorry to hear about such a bad run of luck. You might want to check out that movie "Boy in the Bubble".

Good luck. :beer:

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Many thanks guys! At this point the only thing to do seems to be to keep putting one foot in front of the other and see what happens. I really appreciate all the good wishes.

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Best wishes on overcoming the obstacles and a speedy recovery to health!

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Jim,

Hope all goes well with your recovery. We all need to make our point heard about distracted driving, regardless of whether it's from a cellphone or from being pre-occupied with thought. In BC, no cellphones is the law but I'm really not sure if it's helping.

Keeping your health in mind, keep us up to date.

BC

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  • 2 months later...
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Guys,

Man, I really appreciate all the concern. Here's the latest. The antibiotics seemed to knock the infection down, but my Infections Disease Dr. isn't willing to declare the bugs gone as long as the plate is in my left shoulder. Other than that, things are a lot better than I had any reason to expect them to be last summer. The right wrist is pretty close to perfect, the shoulder has most of its original range of motion and is slowly gaining strength (rebuilding yourself when you're on the wrong side of 60 is a bear), and the left wrist is pretty bent and ugly but it's somewhat functional. I went back to work in August. Considering where I was a year ago, things are pretty darn good. The best news is I've managed to stay vertical.

My surgeon is pretty insistent that the plate stay in place for the better part of a year and isn't willing to risk the infection seeding into the rebuild of the left wrist until the ID specialist declares the bugs gone. So, we have a date in late April to remove the plate. At that point she'll take cultures and get with the ID doc. Assuming we get a go from her, we'll do a rebuild on the left wrist in early June. In a nutshell, she'll cut both the radius and the ulna, adjust their lengths straighten them, and reassemble them with plates and screws. Six months or so later I should be GTG. It's been an experience and not all bad. I found two of the best doctors I've ever met, my family and friends have bent over backwards to help, and I have a darn good bunch of folks on VFRD cheering me on. It's hard to get too down with that kind of support. Thanks guys - so much.

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