Corcoran Brothers

So I got surgery today to repair my hand for problems resulting from my fender bender, which limited the flexibility in my hand. My flexion was okay, but not great.

Long story short, if I made a fist, then I couldn’t lower my hand below parallel to my forearm.

It wasn’t even that noticeable in daily use, except when I tried to pick up something huge and couldn’t quite use my hand the way it was intended to be used. Also, there’s that whole ‘firing a pistol’ thing. You know the deal. My extension was pretty good, but the active extension on my two middle fingers (when I tried to move the fingers without touching them) made it look like I was always doing the Beavis and Butthead “Rock On!” thing (sorry about the shadow).

Passively (pushing on the fingers with my other hand) extended them all the way. Also, my shaka was mad weak, so there was a lot of room for improvement there.
So I checked in to Tripler AMC today, changed into one of those ass-exposing hospital smocks, waited a while reading a book, then got called in. They put me on a gurney and started prepping me. The poor E5 who had to give me my IV (since I was going under general) apparently didn’t have much practice, so it took him a bunch of stabs to get it right. It’s all good. Better for him to improve his skill at home station on a relatively healthy person so he can do it right downrange on someone in a bad way on the battlefield.

The anesthesiologist came in, told me who would give me ‘a tiny dose’ of whatever it was they were giving me to ‘make [me] feel funky’ and ‘a little drowsy’. That was it for me, son. I was knocked out on the roll into the OR.

I woke up about 3 hours later and was only groggy for 10 minutes or so, during which time I watched Seinfeld on a little TV on a crane that was attached to my bed. I remember none of it. I don’t know what it is with me and Seinfeld. When Courtney brought me back from Germany, we watched a Seinfeld marathon while we were at Travis, and I have no recollection of it. I remembered watching Seinfeld, but immediately after each episode, I had no idea which episodes they were. Sorry, Jerry.

My girl Jo-Jo (hetero-lifemate D-Nice’s wife) picked me up and drove me home. I have been completely lucid since the end of the Seinfeld episode and (don’t tell anyone) drove myself to KFC at 6:00PM to break my fast.

So what did they do and what are the results? Well, first they sliced along the existing scar and separated the skin from the tendon, which was limiting the amount of travel the tendon could make (adhesion). Next, they cleared out a lot of scar tissue, which was sorta channeling the tendon left and right; again, making it difficult for it to travel as far as it needed to. My doctor also said that he would try to make the scar more cosmetically palatable, since it was a bit lumpy, asymmetrical, and gross (Courtney’s word, not mine):

and

I can’t say how the stitching and scar removal went, since I am swaddled in all manner of padding, tape, and ace bandages, but I can tell you how the mobility is:
Frigging awesome! I can’t get an accurate measure of how far down my flexion goes due to the boxing glove on steroids that envelopes my whole hand, but by sticking it next to my other hand and doing a rough comparison, it is at least 75% (probably more) back to normal. It doesn’t hurt that bad, and they hooked me up with some nice drugs and 2 weeks of convalescent leave, which I plan to use to show up to work in civilian clothes and a beard, rather than spend time at home watching TV and not tossing knuckleballs (remember: boxing glove).

It is strange: I haven’t had the ability to move my hand this way for a year, and it is downright stange to be able to so now. It’s as if I’ve gained some weird new ability. There shouldn’t be any complications or further adhesion because I am able to move my hand around all the time now, which keeps the tendon from bonding to the scar as it heals. The first time I had work on my ECD, it was stuck at a 30 degree upward angle for two months so that it wouldn’t rip apart again, and that was the main reason it got stuck. I am already good at the scar avoidance stuff (I’ve had a year of practice), and, based on the pain I do have, they cleaned out a lot of the jagged scar tissue from the original accident.

Bottom line at the end: I’m smiling like a little bitch all the time now, and messing around by, say, picking up a Coke at an odd angle, just because I can.

UPDATE: I went to a brief meeting with the OT chief at Tripler today, because he wanted to get a program in place as quickly as possible. He took off the boxing glove and I got to see the visible results of the surgery. It was a really happy surprise. First, here are some good pics of my flexion now. You can compare it to the above photos, or for shits and giggles, do the same motion with your own hand to see how mine stacks up:

Note how the fingers no longer fly up in the universal hand-and-arm signal for ‘poofter’.

And here is with a fist, prior to any directed OT. Once those OT sadists get their hands and machinery on it, it will get even better.

Finally, and this is barely gross, here is what is left of the old scar, which will become a miniature new scar:

Some cool things to note:

1. The hand is slightly swollen from the rooting around in there with a scalpel. It was about twice as swollen yesterday, so that is going away quickly.
2. It is a ‘mattress’ stitch job, so there are only 4 stitches visible, which you can barely see. There’s one at the top, one at the bottom, and two you really have to look for. The rest are all hidden underneath the skin, I think. I guess it is a technique that plastic surgeons use to minimize scarring.

3. The big blue lines aren’t stitching, but are marker. I didn’t get to talk to my doc, but I surmise that they use those to line up the areas outside the old scar that are to be joined up. Bear in mind, those areas of skin used to be 4-5 mm away from each other.

All in all, I’m very happy. Mad props to Dr. Ingari and his staff. I hope nobody got grossed out my the wee bit of blood, but frankly, it is less gross than the old scar, no?

Note it’s been just over a year since Da Kine almost got himself killed. Sure we should have posted about it on the 12th, ya know, when it the anniversary, but we all assumed the another brother was going to take care of it. Anyway, yay, Shane’s not dead. He is going in for more hand surgery this week though, apparently choking the chicken is still only at 92% of full functionality, and he needs that last 8% to feel fully better. (Amazing how they can measure those things…)

I guess in his head injured, not as much a prick, I love my brothers but could never get so fucked up as to tell them kind of way, he is grateful for the support I gave him during his period of healing. (That support being making fun of him and calling him gimpy.) Rather than saying thanks, or expressing any emotion, he did something way cooler. He made me these:

That’s right kids, genuine handmade Da Kine original Mala Beads, made from hemp rope and koa wood beads. The beads themselves are about 12 mm and shimmer in light. I had a a set before, but the string between the beads stretched out to the point they are useless for rotating. Da kine states the hemp rope will not stretch, so that’s covered. Putting the know between each bead makes it much more flexible and fun to play with. I’m totally diggin on them.

It’s been 5 years since joedayuz killed my father.

As Kin-Yah mentioned earlier, Edo did come home for a visit. That’s why the Miracleed tab has been removed, only brothers serving overseas get their own tab. And I will now confirm that Sean actually did cry like a pussy er baby.

It was most humorous, Colleen was telling the story of how her friends had asked if “Santa” (last year played by Edo) had come to visit this year. Colleen had said no, Santa was (not allowed to say, essentially overseas). I then stated yeah, but you know, Santa does have the magical ability of getting around the world in the blink of an eye. With impeccable timing, Edo pulls in the driveway at that moment. Colleen, having no idea what the fuck I am talking about, starts wondering why I had developed a tourettes type tick nudging my head towards the door.

There was an issue when Edo almost performed a leg sweep on Kin Yah when he would not stop the hugging, but it all went well in the end.

Xmas was wonderful, and Edo and JoeDaYuz came over that night for a glorious Xmas Rib Feast. We also had a wee going back to Dixie dinner the night before Edo left, these are where the pictures are from.

We are all proud of Edo for his service, dedication, coming home safe, and his giant balls. Literally.

Our very first VODKA (Virtual Online Da Kine Award) Has been awarded. We were much bemused that it was neither virtual nor online.

Jake received the award in the category of “Most supportive having never met Da Kine” Hell, Jake gets it for being most supportive period. On the thread, Jake made 15 well-wishing comments, on his own blogs he posted about this at least 6 times.

It was with great honor, Jake was presented the first VODKA.

UPDATE - I apologize to the IE users on behalf of Microsoft, who refuses to follow CSS standards. If you had to scroll way down to see the picture, or posts, I have corrected the issue, obviously. And for fooks sake, get Firefox!

I used to think I was a tough guy ’cause I strolled around on a hog that I did my own work on: chopping the fender, painting it flat black, putting on some new turn signals and a side-mount license plate and brake light…that was then, this is now:
bq. When he belches around Baghdad’s old quarter on his spotless Harley Davidson, Kadhem Sharif, a powerlifting champion sporting wrap-around sunglasses, makes for an unlikely sight. And the 53-year-old is fully aware that his passion for one of the most recognizable symbols of the American way of life is not to everybody’s liking in post-war Iraq.

bq. But his garage is a carbon copy of any Harley aficionado’s den in the United States, complete with posters of naked “babes on bikes.” And his collection of 40-plus motorbikes provides a condensed history of 100 years of national turmoil…

bq. About half of his motorbikes are Harleys. “I was 12 when I sneaked out on my father’s Harley for the first time. I bought my first one eight years later, a 1966 Fatboy,” Sharif recalls.

bq. When Saddam Hussein’s feared elder son Odai helped himself to one of his favourite Harleys, “it was almost like losing a child.”

bq. “Odai came back after the 1996 assassination attempt against him and ordered me to convert the bike into a three-wheeler because he was handicapped … I started hiding my best Harleys because I was afraid he would take more.”

Not only does this cat have much love for the Hahleys, but he also has much love for the troops and hated Saddam Hussein:

bq. Despite the intimidating size of his chest and forearms, the former Iraqi bench-press champion, known to his friends as “Mr. Muscle,” now risks an icy reception in insurgent strongholds as his face has become one of the symbols of the overthrow of Saddam’s regime.

bq. On April 9, 2003, Kadhem was one of the first to rush to Baghdad’s Fardus Square and pictures of the burly Shiite hacking away at the marble plinth of Saddam’s giant statue were beamed live around the world in one of the most enduring images of the regime’s ouster.

bq. “People in the neighborhood know me. I get on with everybody. U.S. soldiers used to block the road so they could spend some time in my garage,” Sharif says.

bq. “They sometimes bring me copies of motorcycling magazines and even bought me leather boots. I’m still in touch with one of them who is saving up all his money to buy my Harley chopper.”

If that isn’t a man’s man, I don’t know what is.

Da Kine has emptied his Tivo and watched all his bootleg DVD’s. He was so bored he talked to Kin-Mom on the phone for over an hour. What’s a gimp to do?

He cancelled his trip home to keep going with his therapy, and it is working very well. But that did not fill enough of his day, so our boy is back at work. Office work, nothing too taxing, and he leaves for his appointments. But it does show promise that once done in the army he’ll be able to hold down a job bagging groceries or making sandwiches for a living. No ditch-digging though.

NOTE - I am still waiting for submissions for categories and nominations for the VODKA’s. Add them in the comments or email me directly.

I’ve been going through a bunch of physical and occupational therapy and watching a lot of NYPD Blue and have been remiss in updating the peeps about my status. That will change now. I am going to break it down into categories by body part:

Leg: My knee/leg/displaced kneecap therapy is going great. I have gotten rid of my crutches and brace and walk with a slight limp. My ability to bend my knee so my foot goes toward my butt is back to fully normal. My ability to straighten my leg is still slightly restricted (hence the limp), but has improved over the past 3 weeks, so I can now make a straight line out of my leg, but am unable to get my lower leg to go higher than my upper leg, which all of you can do. My quad is weak on one side (inboard), but mad strong on the other side (outboard) due to the leg presses I take part in during physical therapy. Now that I am off my crutches, that will improve dramatically. The only pain I experience is in my knee after some serious exercise, but that used to happen after football practice, so it is nothing to be concerned about. There are wee scars where they drilled the screws in, so nothing to brag on. Grade: A-

Hand: The specific injury that messed up my hand was a severing of the extensor communis digitorum (common extender of the fingers, for the UnLatinized), which was reconnected. Soon after the surgery, I had to start flexing my fingers once an hour while wearing the splint to help keep the tendon from shortening too much. I wasn’t able to move my wrist for over a month because it might rip ye olde tendon apart again. After a month, I was able to take the splint off once an hour and flex my wrist up and done once an hour for the same reason. Accordingly, my ability to make a fist (and pitch a knuckleball, as kinsean would put it) has returned to almost normal. My ability to move my wrist upward (extension, or making a stop signal) is almost back to normal. My ability to move my wrist downward (flexion, or making a gay gesture) is coming back more slowly. After 2 weeks of exercising my wrist, it was at negative 5 degrees, meaning I couldn’t even get it even with my forearm. 2 weeks later, following some excellent occupational therapy, it is at 20 degrees. 80 to 85 degrees is normal. With some heating and prior stretching, I can actually get it to 40 degrees. My goal for the next 1-2 months that was set in conjunction with the occupational therapist was for me to be able to golf again. That’s a pretty good sign of progress when the LTC in charge of a clinic sees it as realistic that I’ll be hitting the links during the summer. There’s no pain there and maybe some slight aching after the NCO who helps me with assisted bending and stretching uses her body weight to push my hand down over the edge of a table while we rap about the time she spent in Iraq. I lucked into a nice 6-inch scar along the back of my hand that I can use to scare my future daughters’ boyfriends, by serving as a catalyst for me to talk about my time in the Army and the combat I saw, preferably while cleaning a weapon and staring into his eyes. Grade: B

Head: Any brain whooping and skull fracturing I took seems hypothetical to me at this point. For the first few weeks after I got home, if I sneezed or something my head would hurt. Now, nothing. I get slightly dizzy sometimes when I’m laying down and look sharply left or up, but that is pretty normal for a little while after the sort of injuries I got. My neuropsychology results were all positive, and the slight deficiencies I had were in verbal memory and visual recognition, although they were still well within normal for someone of my intelligence. After talking to the doc, he told me that the fact I maxed out all the other tests (scoring above most people who didn’t whack their noggin on the pavement) and didn’t do as well on the last two tests I took probably had to do with the fact I took the tests so soon after the injury and was still drugged up, meaning I had a lowered attention span. I do remember being bored off my ass during the 3 hours of testing. I have slight scarring where hair is supposed to be which D-Nice’s wife Lady J said looked like the mange. I also have a pretty nice one going down the right side of my forehead and into my eyebrow (a la Spike from Buffy/Angel) which is disappointingly light in hue. Score: A.

Shoulder: The physical therapy for my shoulder has had amazing results. Two weeks after starting the exercises, I went from not being able to raise my arm above parallel to the ground to being 75% of normal. Courtney noted that I shouldn’t test my shoulder in public because while I can’t call a field goal good yet, I can sure seem like I’m heiling Hitler. I actually sleep on my left shoulder some nights and can lift heavy stuff with my left hand. As I move into weight training and such, the improvements should continue. Grade: A-.

Ribs: Broken ribs again seem hypothetical. I have some soreness getting up in the morning or getting out of the car, but it seems more like I just ran 2 miles than broken bones. I won’t be able to box or wrestle for a couple more months and I had to cancel my tryout with the Pats for their special teams, but that’s aight. Score: A.

Pelvis: I think they messed up the test on this one. For my first few weeks of physical therapy, I couldn’t lay on my stomach because it seemed like my hip was bothering me, but that went away quickly. Also, I heard from some soldiers that fractured pelvises can cause erectile dysfunction (thanks, Chief) and that has sure as hell not been an issue. Seriously, I don’t feel any effect from this one so it must have healed quickly. Grade: A.

So, the state of Da Kine is good. I have a positive attitude and have nothing but praise for the professionals at Tripler, who always have good advice and the ability to keep their patients(?) motivated. I’d like to give a tardy shout out to Chris and Emily at The Red Seat, who sent me two t-shirts celebrating our beloved Red Sox along with a nice note of good wishes. I’ve been meaning to write them an honest-to-shit thanks via snail mail for weeks but haven’t done it yet. If there was ever a chance of me getting bummed out from the accident (despite the presence of Courtney, Bones, and Sipowicz), the outpouring of support from people I know and don’t know would have nipped that in the arse. Here are two people who don’t know me from Adam but take the time to let me know there are people thinking about me. Besides that, their site is great and they sell some pissah gear!

It took me a full 20 minutes to figure our how to log on to write this, and another 5 to remember my login and password. Whatever. To prove I am not truly half-retarded, check out my wonderful sports blog that I have been frequently updating for the past several weeks.

The most clever article I’ve written ever, including picture, was produced yesterday. Here it is in exact replica from the original:

Despite my disappointment with the results of the last game against the Phillies, I was excited to see the batting practice/alternate/vintage jerseys, i.e. the crimson ones with DC on the chest. I had to make a mad dash to the MLB site and order one for the biggest Nats fan in the world: my spouse.

Since she loves the whole roster the same, she didn’t want to offend them by getting a Wilkerson, Castilla, or Loaiza shirt, so I got her one with a classic military nickname for someone with her maiden name and her Airborne School roster number.

The cleverness involved in that proves I’m mentally sharp.

I had a followup today with the doctor (a full-bird colonel) who oversaw both my surgeries and the evaluation of my remaining injuries. Mostly it involved him asking me to move my broken places (knee, arm, shoulder) in different ways, then measuring how well I did compared to expectation. Exact quote (I ensured I memorized it): “Wow. This is amazing. I wouldn’t expect this level of recovery and health out of someone who wasn’t three months post-op. I can’t believe we only did the surgery four weeks ago.” I shit you not. He really said that. I tried to tell Courtney that this proved what I had said earlier when I was drugged up: mainly, that if you want to ruin a member of the Irish race physically (i.e., kill him), you’d better give him two shots to the head, because flipping him over 3 times in a Mitsubishi mini-van and ejecting him onto the highway at 60+ MPH just won’t cut it.

Ed. Note - Da Kine’s Computer held on to the cookie from when I posted from it, so this post was under my name. I have changed it to reflect his authorship. - kinshay

When we visited Shane in Hawaii, there was much discussion of how he would spend his life as a gimp. He has spoken of and is now giving serious thought to opening a Quizno’s. While Mom warded off a heart attack at the thought of it, we talked about franchises and location, etc.. His dream spot is right outside Kenmore Square, with amazing foot traffic for both Sox games and college bastards. He pontificated for hours about how good a spot it is.

He must have been right.

I had the distinct honor and pleasure of calling Shane to let him know that someone else had beaten him to the punch. About two blocks down from Boston Beer Works (heading away from the square) sits a shiny new Quizno’s, grand opening sign and all. He cried for a while, then sucked it up and thought about where else to start his empire.

Good Shit Alert!

Shane has cut his lunch making time from 30 minutes to 5 minutes (adaptive techniques) and started some more intense PT. He can bend his bad knee up to his arse, and almost but not quite straighten it all the way. His gimpy shoulder he is now able to raise at least 90 degrees. Combine the gross motor recovery on that side with the cast removed and down to a splint on the other hand, he is pretty well setup.

Gross Shit Alert!

To help keep the scar on his right hand from being to bad, da kine has some special sort of mat he places on it. Keeps the tissue nice and moist or some such. He noticed a bump of some sort towards the tail end of the scar, and figured it was scar tissue. Then he looked closer, played with it, and pulled out from betwix his sutures a nice hunk of auto safety glass. I’m guessing it doesn’t show up on xray.