Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Tuesday elbow "surgery" in pictures

 I posted a bunch HERE. They are mildly graphic.
 I went to the doctor this morning and he took one look at my elbow and sent me to the emergency room. Crap. Turns out it was about 93.2% worse than I thought yesterday. Essentially I detached a lot of skin from my elbow (a big section of skin is hanging loose like a pocket not attached to anything) and it had a ton of gravel and rock in it. I tore the bursa and nicked a few tendons which the DA said she could see, along with muscle and bone. The worst part is going to come in about 48 hours when a raging infection starts to take hold, which the doctor said is very likely. I already have a doctors appointment for Thursday.
  It was basically open surgery. Weird seeing forceps scraping your skin from the inside. It's fu*king killing me now.

17 comments:

it's all about pace said...

daaaang... heal quickly my friend

Jeff Valliere said...

I will not say I told you so....

Damn, that really sucks. One generally thinks of trail running as being reasonably safe (aside from the routine joint/tendon overuse injuries and such), but I occasionally think about how bad it would suck to take a dive in the rocks at high speed. Not that I would ever do it, but knee/elbow pads, gloves and maybe even a mouth guard wouldn't be a bad idea for bombing the downhill.

Sorry to hear about this, heal up soon.

JK said...

FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK-ING OUCH!!!!!

I already know how tough you are, now stop it. We're getting too old for this crap.

GZ said...

Barf.

David said...

You are ridiculously awesome. Infections take antibiotics so they don't get Lucho.

Bill Russell said...

It'd have f*cking killed you if you'd waited any longer. Heal up.

Lucho said...

Thanks guys, it'll be fine.

JV- Dammit... I thought of you and Scott when the doc said to go to the ER. You did tell me so!

JK- No shit huh? I told my wife that I have been through worse... and she said "Ya, but you're almost 40 now"... ouch.

Lucho said...

Shaun- The mean weight of the human arm is about 3.216kg. Which would give me maybe 5:00 on Evans? Meh. I like my arm more better.

Brad Poppele said...

So sorry to hear this. Get well soon!!!

Brett said...

Who was taking those pictures, your wife? And how did you ask: "Honey, you gotta take pitures of this so I can show everybody." No wonder our wives don't get us half the time.

So the good news is if you get that raging infection in 48 hours, you'll already have antibiotics also raging through your body. Better to be in that state than to have the raging infection by itself.

I'm very thankful you sought it out. Git bettuh.

Lucho said...

Brett- That was all me man!
No antibiotics yet. The doctor said that taking antibiotics before I had an infection could result in the breeding of resistant strains of bacteria? So basically the bacteria would mutate around the antibiotic? I didn't know. I have a doc appointment on Thursday for a follow up.

Wassdoc said...

Just read your posts today. Glad you went to the doctor, when I read your description I was a little worried. Nothing is ever 100% certain in medicine. It's now day to day to see what happens. Think positive thoughts, that actually helps! And, it's what has helped make you bullet proof in the past.

Lucho said...

Mike- I think the power of positivity (and awesome training) has made you bullet proof also! Thanks.

Trigirlpink said...

Ah Geeze Tim, See.. you are too tough for you own good! Thank god you finally got that looked at. Let's hope there's no raging infection to be had.

mtnrunner2 said...

They could have put an iPod Shuffle in there before they closed it up. Guess I should have suggested that yesterday.

I had one of those days on trail (Mount Galbraith) today where I had two left feet and kept tripping, and I was definitely thinking of those photos. Took it REAL easy.

Glad you got in for treatment. Hopefully solid healing is ahead.

Jeff Valliere said...

mtrunner2, you stumbled upon Lucho's new race tactic.... Freak everyone out into slowing down a bit (though he nothing to worry about from me personally either way).

Instead of "tough as Chuck Norris" jokes, we can start easing Lucho's name in Chuck's place.

Lucho said...

"A true master paralyzes his opponent, leaving him vulnerable to attack"
I paralyze my opponents with nausea and disgust. At Evans I plan on having a giant goiter on my neck.