The Siamerican

Now eight months married to this Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injury (TBPI), I finally received a callback from the government hospital doc… Last time I was at the hospital was about the five month mark. Then it was said I’d be queued up for primary surgery on normal state–out of pocket & affordable basis–which to make an even long story shorter has come up now.

Notified just this past Wednesday, peculiar albeit grateful timing dictates that I drop everything at school (dually as full time ESL Instructor at a bilingual grade school and Communication Arts student at an international university) to go to the downtown renowned government hospital, Chulalongkorn Memorial, Sunday morning, scheduled to go under the exploratory knife Monday.

Sounds like if any nerve grafting or transfer is to be done while in La-la land, the calf will be the donor. I won’t know anything till I wake up sometime Monday-Tuesday. I’ve never been under Anastasia before, let alone cut open at dangerous proximity to vital arteries and passages, so you might imagine the excited concern lingering.

This nerve business has me nervous. The status of my recovery to this date has me applying my disabled hand and wrist at activities that were written off as dust in the wind initially—the ukulele, guitar, grip master, synthetic balls, rigid poles, this keyboard and game controllers have proved to be worthy habitual tools to stretch the boundaries of capability and determination.

Yet still my shoulder, upper arm, and posterior forearm are without independent motor function. In plainer terms, I can not order my atrophied (denervated and dying) biceps and triceps to lift nor curl my arm, My deltoids sags yet incapable of holding my shoulder in place, left a bony shoulder-scapula remain. Can it be salvaged at this point is the question and concern. There is a high probability, elbow flexion (curling) is not far fetched from returning, however lifting at the shoulder is a whole nother hurdle.

Some level of compensated nerve regeneration has reached down parts of my belittled arm. In addition to indicative Tinel’s sign (tapping of defected muscles triggering tingling sensation further down elsewhere the path of the back, shoulder, and arm)I occasionally feel a subtle yet sure burning-firing sensation deep within my bicep, on top of more frequently hardly itchable itches around the elbow and only just impeding further down the forearm. .

Yes I believe my nerves never gave up. Some of them were definitely severed in the initial trauma, but what was hanging on seems to have attempted a reckonable path of compensation. The B-Vitamins and fish oil capsules at the least weren’t impeding. As is with these injuries, it is the reawakening and reinervation of the atrophied muscles to be concerned, as a nerve on its own has little to no use without the muscle.

I worry that the compensation I have achieved at my wrist and hand will be jeopardized when I’m opened up to try and salvage my upper arm-shoulder, rewiring, transferring or even perhaps grafting of nerves.

Surely, it is normal concern as who wants to take four steps back after only making this first step out of the dreaded pit of agony. As is with any worthy gain, there must always exist associated risks, so be it—I can only hope going under the knife in few days time is in my best interests at this stage.

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