Thursday, June 9, 2011

Joan Goes Bra-less (by John)

OK, first thing for those of you who were concerned about this: Joan managed to get to the doctor's today without wearing a bra. And she was very comfortable without it.
Next, she did well on the trip over and back, but did tire easily. She slept for much of both the trip over and the trip back, which is a good sign, because the combination of healing and pain meds let her relax enough to do so.
But we did find out something today that was unexpected. Our family physician looked closely at the CD of the X-ray of Joan's left shoulder, and noticed that there was a lot more blood and swelling than would be accounted for by a hairline fracture of the collarbone. His conclusion is that Joan's left collarbone was actually completely broken in the accident, but that during the roll of the mini-van or its landing on the pavement, the two parts of the collarbone were pushed back together end to end, so as to leave only the appearance of a hairline fracture. What this means practically is that Joan is now wearing a sling on her left arm, and will need to wear it for at least 4 weeks until the bone is X-rayed again.
Joan has said tonight that the sling helps with the pain, and that she is glad to find out what was making her collarbone hurt so badly. It probably won't make that much difference in her ability to use her left arm; she couldn't use it much anyway!
Also, we are most likely not going to our doctor's appointments in the morning. Joan is very tired from today's trip, so we will probably just stay home tomorrow, and let her arm and body rest.
Thanks for all the prayers, cards, Emails, and thoughts. I will post up something again tomorrow.
John

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