This week has gone better than I would have expected and I’m able to do everything by myself. My parents are planning to stay a few more days through my appointment with the doctor and then will head back home. At this point, I have almost full extension of my arm and can comfortably bend my arm to a little bit more than 90 degrees. I have to keep my arm elevated to keep the swelling down, but I can be out and about for a couple of hours with my sling on before I feel like I need to prop up my arm for a bit. I spent about 2-days where I was mostly lying in bed and didn’t want to get up, and then about another 2-days where I mostly just relaxed on the couch. The pathology report came back this week and there is no evidence that any of the cancer is remaining. I still have the suspicious lung nodules and only time will tell if all the cancer is out of my arm, but I’m grateful for all the progress and success I’ve seen this week.

One thing that caught me off guard during all of this was how much swelling occurred and how it prevented the movement of my hand. For the first four days I had what they call a nerve catheter. It was a small tube that was inserted into my shoulder and sat just above the main nerve feeding my arm. For about 4 days after surgery, it would continuously drip lidocaine on top of the nerve and numb my entire arm. I had something similar after my knee surgery a few years ago and it was so helpful. For about 4-days, I couldn’t feel my arm at all, but after I pulled the drip out and started to regain feeling in my arm, I noticed that I couldn’t move my hand at all. It was a little concerning especially as time went on when I was regaining sensation and function in my arm and  hand, but wasn’t gaining any ability to lift my fingers at my first knuckle. I knew the lidocaine took up to 24 hours to wear off and that the doctors said they saved all the nerves except those that provide the sensation to the inner side of my forearm. It was concerning as that 24-hours progressed and as I started researching the nerves in the arm,

I was concerned that I had lost function of one specific nerve in my arm. I could squeeze my fingers, but didn’t have the ability to fully spread my fingers. I just tried not to think about it but I was starting to get pretty concerned once I passed the point after removing the lidocaine pump where I should have regained full function. There was about a 2-day period of stress and praying a lot about my hand function when the doctor called me to check in on me. I asked him about the hand function and he said it was likely the post-surgery swelling restricting a notoriously finicky nerve and was pretty confident my hand function would come back. Lo and behold, several hours after he said that, I started being able to move my fingers ever so slightly and have been slowly regaining the full function of my hand. Turns out this is a pretty common post surgery experience, but it was really concerning for about a day and a half wondering if I would go the rest of my life without the full function of my hand. I’ve had time to process the significant lack of strength and career path I’ll likely lose from the removal of the muscle, but it was a sanctifying experience for that day and a half to wonder what my life would be like without my full hand function. I am so grateful now for the function that I have in my left hand. Having my life change so drastically has meant I’ve experienced a lot of familiar emotions in new and more potent ways. While it was caused purely by my lack of medical knowledge, I got a unique chance to think about what my life would look like without the full function of my hand. Muscles seem straightforward and easy, but nerves feel more abstract and more finicky in a way that you have to trust the Lord. In a situation like this where you don’t have any control over the situation, it forces you to trust in the Lord and the only thing you can do is try to control your emotions.

I meet with the doctor tomorrow for my post-surgery meeting and start up my natural treatments this week at Root Causes. Please pray for my arm to continue to heal without complication and that I’ll be able to build up usable strength in my arm. I’m overall so grateful for the position I’m in now where I can focus on getting better, for such a great team of doctors, and a successful surgery. As I come to mind this week, please continue to pray for me, but also thank the Lord for all the prayers He’s already answered. I have a long way to go, but God has been working so many things for my good throughout this.

P.S. I’m typing this all one handed and it’s too much work to go back through and edit it, so good luck reading this all.