Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Hand surgery went well and I am now up walking around



Surgery on my thumb went very well yesterday. It hurts, ALOT! I go back on the first to have my cast placed on my hand, right now I am in just a plaster splint. I am also up walking on my left leg with full weight bearing. While it is sore and I am not got to win any running races at least I don't have to use my crutches!



Thanks for all of the well wishes everyone!



Saturday, January 12, 2008

And now the hand...

Yesterday I had an MRI of my right thumb/hand taken. If you remember back on the 23rd during my first ski trip, I caught my thumb on my ski pole as I took a tumble. After the MRI, I went straight to the hand doc to find out the results and develop a plan to treat the pain in my thumb. Originally, when I went to the hand doc last Monday she said it was a partial tear of the UCL(Ulnar Collateral Ligament), also called skier's thumb. The first words out of her mouth were, "I just got the results from the radiologist of your MRI and your thumb has a complete tear of the UCL...." My heart sunk and I knew it would require yet another surgery. The doc immediately started talking about the surgery she had booked for me on the 22nd of January. It will be an outpatient surgery without the general antithetic using only a Bier block on my hand. I will be in a cast for 3 weeks and then a soft splint.... I guess when I play I play hard! Oh well I would rather have it fixed than go around with the pain I have in my thumb and lack of grip strength....




Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Surgery and a haircut



I had surgery on the leg again on the 3rd. All went well with about 4 hours under the knife. The doc removed the plate on my Fibula and all of it's associated screws. The nail (rod) was replaced with a slightly larger, 14 mm dia vs the 12 mm that was in my tibia, nail made from titanium (Ti). The doc found some studies that show that Ti resists infection slightly better than the stainless steel that was in my leg.

This is all of the hardware, below, that you see in the x-ray above!
The two screws that are broken below are the two in the bottom of my tibia above.

So overall the surgery went GREAT I had some trouble in the recovery room with pain and dosing of my pain meds. I spent 4 days in the hospital and I had an interesting roommate. Jeremy was a recovering heroin addict that was just a total character. He kept me company and I helped to encourage him as he looked forward to a new life, a clean life. I pray that he gets the help, treatment, and new life that he so desperately needs. On a lighter note he kept calling Christie my "girlfriend" even though we told him we were married and she is my wife. So it became the running joke to not tell my wife that my girlfriend had been there to visit me also. We watched the Seahawks game on Saturday together and hooted and hollered at the TV watching the Seahawks kick the Redskins arse!

When I got home I decided to cut my hair. My grandfather, M.C. Lockwood, always had the craziest wild hair that stuck up all over the place like it had a mind of it's own. Christie had taken to calling my hair "crazy grandpa" hair... So Christie got the scissors and clippers out and let Abigael have a go with the scissors.

They cut my length down and then Christie buzzed me down to a "no guard" length with the clippers. I want to keep my beard for awhile and I like the look of buzzed head and full beard. Christie says I look like the character on the old magnetic face creator, Wooly Willy.

Off topic, I have a meeting set up in early February with the city of Tacoma to start the preliminary planning process for my idea of a multi-use trail system with a mountain bike focus in the Wapato Hills greenspace park. I am also receiving a great deal of donated help from my father's enterprise Trails Unlimited. I have a vision for a true trail system similar to the Tapeworm, the Colonnade, Banner Forest, or Lake sawyer/Henry's Ridge to be built and maintained by local users to allow the citizens of Tacoma to have a unique area to ride mountain bikes in the city!


Late Edit: For those not familiar with WHY I had to have surgery it is to repair a nasty tib-fib fracture I sustained back in August 2005 from getting hit by a car while riding my bicycle. For the full story click here.... and here... and here... and here... and finally my poor destroyed bike!

Monday, January 07, 2008

2008...

WOW is about all I can muster. 2008 has got to be better than 2007, yet 2007 was a year full of amazingly awesome immensely important events. 2007 was a surgery free year, yeah! We bought a house and moved to Tacoma. My son, Mason Campbell, was born. Abigael grew up so much including being fully potty trained going into 2007, going to "school" for most of the beginning of the year, and getting her first haircut/trim. I fell back in love with my beautiful wife after not quite realizing that I have had it so good for the past ELEVEN years!
Bought a new car, a MINI VAN!! I tried my hand at endurance mountain bike racing (more like riding than actully being competitively racing) , finding my new love on the bike, as well as went fully 29er. I found myself trying, 4 1/2 months out of 6, but not able to complete firefighter recruit school with KCFD 20 due to my not fully healed leg. Starting the EMT class and then not being able to complete it due to the craziness of life. Getting my first "clock in clock out" regular job in over three years with REI. I made some awesome new friends in 2007 and look forward to making many more in 2008! Built and almost finished my very own bike shop in my "garage/shop" with help from friends and mostly family. Made a change in my cycling team and have decided to go back to AVA/Counterbalance in 2008, thanks so much for 2007 Viking Sport!!


So I start out 2008 with a vandalized car and MAJOR leg surgery so it can only get better right? I stayed in the hospital at Harborview from the 3rd till the 6th and everything in surgery went excellent! I just have a deep down feeling that 2008 is going to be an amazingly awesome better year. I plan on taking 2008 to focus on my healing and recovery, my family, our house and new life in Tacoma, training to become a better cyclist and mountain biker, getting ready for nursing school in 2009, working at REI and raising the kids, improving our house and most importantly learning to love my wife all over again...!