Freedom Day

Diane and I went in for orthopedic follow up yesterday and now have clearance to start using our limbs. They removed the external fixator which I have been wearing on my arm for the past 11 weeks.

The removal was a unique experience to say the least. First the attendant unscrewed the connecting rods leaving the 2 couplings projecting from my skin, each supported by 2 pins. Then he loosened off each coupling and slid it off its pins.

This was not as easy as it sounds as I had conscientiously kept the bolts fairly tight and the attendant was using a sloppy adjustable wrench which kept slipping off the bolt heads. This is not a fun experience when you are working with something which is anchored in bone and I gently suggested that he use an open-ended wrench in future. I'm going to bring one for him next visit.

The pins in my 2nd metacarpal had stripped loose, as I had suspected from the escalating pain in my hand over the last 12 days, and as soon as the connecting rods were removed the coupling in my hand waggled around freely in the bone. I had to hold it tight with my right hand so the attendant could loosen off the bolts without damaging the metacarpal more than it already was.

After that it was time to remove the pins themselves. Again it was out with the adjustable wrench and the attendant first unscrewed the larger pins in my radius. He warned me in advance that it would be a strange sensation but I would say it was more of a "funny" sensation - as in funnybone. I noticed that the pins had self-tapping threads. Boy am I glad they put me out for the insertion!

The distal pins were much simpler since they were stripped and the attendant was able to unscrew them with his fingers.

The whole removal procedure was done without anaesthetic but except for the unfortunate matter of the metacarpal I would say it was well within my personal pain tolerance. Not a pleasant experience but nothing to be feared either and well worth it to be free of that device.

Still, there was something amateurish and tentative about the whole process which gave me the impression that they don't deal with external fixators that often. I would suggest that a proper set of tools would be a good start:

1) 10 mm open ended wrench for the bolts
2) larger adjustable wrench to grip the coupling while loosening off the bolt so it doesn't twist the pins against the bone.
3) T handle wrench for the pins so they can be loosened without torquing them from the side.


And now it's on to physio for both of us. The surgeon was well pleased with our x-rays so I trust that we will get the full use of our limbs again.

Afterward, Diane and I wandered around shopping and at one point kind of accidently turned into the parking lot of a Honda dealership. Since we were there anyway we spent some time looking at the bikes, specifically a CBF1000, a Varadero and the Wings. Do you offer demo rides? Great, but not today, thanks. Maybe in a month