Tag: Life

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Ulnar Nerve Transposition Surgery – Update 3

Posted on December 30, 2008by admin

One of the most popular entries on my blog is my initial post about having Ulnar nerve Transposition surgery (graphic pics) in March 2008. I’ve blogged a few times since then with status updates and I thought would give another update really quick, being 9 months later.

The numbness on the elbow itself is going away, its now sensitive to touch and very tender (I’ll take this over numbness any day). If I bump my elbow directly on a door or desk its still very painful and I shriek every time. The scar from the incision is about 6 inches, perhaps 7 inches in length its wide and still very tender and red, a large lump presumably scar tissue and a strange indent are located around the scar. Also, the area around the scar appears to be bruised, the skin is darker in tone.

The tingling and numbness in the pinky and ring finger are bout 50% of what they were before the surgery which is fine as I’m learning to deal with it. The Doctor said it’ll probably take 2-3 years for the nerve to repair itself since it was compressed so bad.

Before the surgery my arm would ache almost all the time, it was a “tired dull pain” that lingered. However, the surgery seemed to resolve that and I only have the “tired dull pain” when I over use my arm now.

I am glad I had the surgery, its been a long road and the situation is at least 40-50% better then what it was before surgery. I go back to the doctor in February 2009 for a checkup and I’ll follow up here as well with the results.

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Green Mountain Marathon Vermont

Posted on November 12, 2008by admin

It’s been a month since I last posted and during that time my wife I took a trip to Vermont to accomplish a few goals, run a marathon and visit her family.

We set off to run the marathon on a Saturday morning, it was cold, around 30-35 degree’s and sunny. Around 8:30am the race started and we paced ourselves for a 12 minute mile, about 2 hours and 30 minutes into the race we reached the half way point (13.1 miles).

We were feeling pretty good at that point since we had ran that distance many times during the summer, however, around mile 19 or 20 I hit the “wall” so to speak its and odd feeling when you body just stops running and you unconsciously start to walk.  I am about 2-3 miles ahead of my wife at this point, we made a pact that we would go ahead of each other if we felt like we could, I did.

Around mile 21 I met up with an awesome lady named Dorthy, her spirit and positive energy got me through the last 5.2 miles of that marathon and I’ll never forget the time we ran together. She’ll probably never see this blog, but I just want to say thanks Dorothy. Dorthy and I finished 1 second apart, I was dehydrated, delusional and I was trying to comprehend how my wife was already at the finish line. Come to find out she made it 19 miles before she had to stop, I was proud of her for making it that far.

I finished the marathon, 26.2 miles in just under 5 hours and 30 minutes, all those months of hard training actually paid off.

The marathon was around Lake Champlain here is a picture of the sunset there.

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we got another dog…

Posted on October 4, 2008by admin

A family member of mine recently surrendered their dog of 7 years to the local vet. My wife and I have always talked about how we felt we could provide the dog with a better more stable home but never really knew how we could approach the situation without causing any unneeded drama.

Things got interesting when another family member I had stopped to visit was upset, I proceeded to ask what was wrong and got a heartbreaking story about how the dog had been surrendered to the local vet because they could not take care of her nor pay for the surgery she needed to have her bladder stones taken care of.

I wish they would have asked my wife and I to help them or take the dog we would of happily done so. My wife and I are big animals lovers we have 3 dogs and 2 cats already and sometimes its crazy but it’s well worth the enjoyment. When I found out I immediately went to the vet and asked if she had been adopted and offered to pay the $1000 to have her surgery taken care of if we could adopt her. The hardest part for me was knowing this poor dog had only known one family and was about to be given to someone else at the age of 7 it seemed heartbreaking to me to let this happen, since she knows us and loves our border collie.

The vet called me back this morning and OK’d the adoption, she is going to have her surgery on Monday and we’ll be able to pick her up on Tuesday. In the end I hope we’ll be able to provide her with a good home and the ability to run in a large yard and play with other dogs.

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Ulnar Nerve Transposition Surgery – Update 2

Posted on July 29, 2008by admin

Just another update on this situation. During the past two weeks I’ve had increased dull pain in my arm, spasms/cramping in my left hand and the incision is still very swollen, discolored and sensitive. It actually hurts to type because my fingers lock up and get very tired.

I go back to the doctor on Sep 05, but frankly I am not very optimistic. I’m questioning rather or not this surgery was worth it….

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Ulnar Nerve Transposition Surgery

Posted on June 9, 2008by admin

I figured I would take a minute and update my status after 3 months. My elbow is still very tender and hurts when touched in certain ways, like if its bumped or I set it down on a table. My arm is still very stiff and the elbow is numb as well, its a odd feeling and the tingling in my pinky and ring finger still persists.

I go back to the doctor next week and we’ll see what he says, my nerve was pretty damaged and when I visited a month ago he said I would most likely still see improvement 2-5 years down the road. All-in-All I am not sure the surgery was really a total success the aching has gone away but the numbness hasn’t and that’s the part I am having trouble getting used too.

I’ll try to keep up on my updates on a more regular basis since people seem to be interested in sharing their experiences on my previous post. 🙂

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Ulnar Nerve Transposition Surgery

Posted on March 23, 2008by admin
Bruising and incision

On 3/17/08 I had surgery to correct a pinched nerve in my elbow. The pinched nerve was causing the pinky and ring fingers to be numb and tingle, also serve arm aching. Hopefully this surgery will correct the issue, however the pain right now is horrible. The nerve was relocated to forearm under the muscle. Here are some pictures of my arm taken 4 days after surgery.

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Macbook Pro & Netgear wnr834b

Posted on November 2, 2007by admin

I decided to take advantage of the wireless n adapter in my macbook so I purchased a Netgear WNR834B from a local retail store. The Mabook Pro seems to have issues with the Netgear wireless router it will make a connection (ie show its connected) when coming out of sleep mode but it will not connect to the internet. Everything gets assigned but the route on the OS side.

After I made these two changes on the router things improved.
1. LAN IP Setup – Change “Rip Direction” to “Both”
2. In Wireless Settings change the channel to something other then “auto”. I picked 10.

Now when my macbook comes out of sleep mode the wireless works and I can surf at least 8/10 times.