I love the music of the Dave Matthews Band.
But I am not sad they are not touring next year. In fact if they never tour again, my life is not going to be much different than it is today.
The light, love, satisfaction and direction in my life are not provided by, nor dependent on one Mr. David John Matthews. (Nor on any other person he shares a stage with.)
I'd say it to his face. And bet money he wouldn't think me any less a fan for it.
Seven is a Dave Matthews Band song.
Seven is the number of weeks since surgery.
I am a star physical/occupational therapy student, too. I have done every thing as I was supposed to, for as many reps as I was supposed to, as many times a day as I was supposed to.
I want my hand back the way it was.
A week after the surgery, the therapist took the cast off, and I got to wash my hand for the first time, and see the stitches, and the bruising, and the swelling. She took the first set of measurements, and the results were sobering. I had single digits of degrees of bend and straighten in my fingers.Well except my thumb. It was okay. My index finger moved okay at the big joint, but didn't bend so well.
Every week I've looked forward to going to therapy to get the new measurements. The past two weeks I haven't been sure there was any progress at all, and both times there was. Today saw a huge improvement in the very last knuckle on my ring finger.
Did the hand strength test for the first time today too. Had 84 pounds in my left hand. Less than 60 in my right, and since I'm right handed, there's some work to do there. Which I will do, naturally.
(Although I didn't need the gauge to know this. Every morning I try to pick up the coffee pot with my right hand and pour it, and every morning I spill. One of these days I won't spill.)
(Because I don't have any intention of giving up my coffee.)
I got to pick up the marbles for the first time today too. Blew through that. (Had practice picking up and holding 46 guitar picks, after all.)
So I did the resistance machine with 30 pounds on it 30 times. That was also easy.
Got another splint today, this one puts pressure on my middle knuckle, and works to straighten out my finger. My hand looks mostly normal when relaxed, as fingers naturally curl a bit inward, but when I try to straighten my fingers all the way up, that ring finger droops. Certainly less than it did, but more than I'm happy with.
It's easy to see why, I've got a spot of scar tissue on the big knuckle right over the beginning of the incision that I haven't been able to massage loose yet. The tendons are still stuck. It prevents me from straightening the finger on my own.
It can be pushed into both straight and fully bent positions, so the therapist says that the joint has movement, which is very good. The rest will come with time. (And be helped along by an appointment with a massage therapist who knows about these types of injuries.)
And in the curling finger arena, I can almost make a fist now with my own muscle strength. Seven weeks ago I thought that might never be possible for me again. I couldn't even get the tips of all my fingers to touch a tennis ball in my hand at first. So I held it with my thumb and made therapy out of fondling the tennis ball. As I got better, I moved to smaller balls. After the golf ball, my Dave picks came in the mail, so I started fondling those.
(A Twitter friend of mine wrote a letter to Dave's management company, and it wound up in the hands of Craig Baker, Dave's guitar tech. Craig wrote me a nice note, and sent me a package that had a crew t-shirt, a pair of Carter drumsticks, and 46 Dave picks in it.)
I got my black firedancer.
In fact, I got five of them. If you know anything about me, you know how I feel about the number five.
So yes, I have been fondling five firedancers.
Monday I go back to the doctor. Maybe he'll have an idea when he might take the plate and screws out. Not that I want more surgery, but it would be nice if it could be done in this same at-home stretch. Compared to the first one, the second surgery should be a piece of cake.
Naturally I'll ask them to play Dave Matthews during it like they did the first surgery.
