Friday, January 30, 2009

What I have been doing today.

I was here from 6:30am - 1:00pm:

My mom had surgery on her elbow because she broke her elbow off. Wonder what a elbow broken off looks like? Let's take a look.

Here is what a normal elbow x-ray looks like:


Here is what my mom's elbow x-ray (pre-surgery) looks like:


The plan was to take the piece that broke off and pin it back to the ulna, wrap some wire around it to keep it in place, and check the cartilege for damage. By 7:30am, Mom was rolled off to surgery while Dad and I took off to the waiting room. Soon we were joined by Grandparents and Ruth, who brought us breakfast.

While in the waiting room, I snapped a few shots of us, well...waiting.



After about 2 1/2 hours, the very young surgeon came back and told us it wasn't as simple as expected. They had to place a plate and some screws in her arm. She gave us the post-op x-rays so we could see what she was talking about. I had to take a picture of them, so it is kind of blurry, but I think you can get the picture. There are obviously some items in the x-ray that are not usually located in the human body.


We are back home now. Mom is resting and I don't know about Dad, but I am about to do the same.

4 comments:

Melissa Amateis said...

Wow, what an ordeal! And I'm glad you posted the X-rays. I was wondering how a person broke their elbow off. :-)

Laura said...

well that is some fancy hardware. my brother has/had a wrist that looked that way in x-rays. something in his body didn't want to keep the plate and screws so they took some of it out.
i hope your mom has a smooth recovery! i'm praying for fast healing and minimal pain. hope you're having a good weekend with family in spite of the less that perfect reason to be visiting. see you back in NE. :)

Audrey said...

aaahhh that looks so awful, you can tell her elbow is swollen in the xray...

jnet said...

glad she did okay!