Earwig’s Bionic Arm

Well, well, well. It has been a long time. No excuses...but there are reasons that so much time has passed since we last updated this blog. One of the biggest reasons is that I’ve been occupied dealing with an injury. Last fall, I crashed while skateboarding at the Athens skate-park and grandly smashed my elbow. I knew my elbow was messed up and it hurt, but I didn’t have it X-rayed or realize that it was actually broken until January 2009. The Radial head in my left arm was broken and there was a piece of that bone lodged in such a way that I couldn’t fully straighten out my arm. I had also severely damaged the tendon in my elbow. I ended up with an orthopedic specialist in Columbus and had joint replacement surgery in early February. They cut off the damaged end of my radius and fitted me with a titanium replacement. Even cooler than that…they grafted a harvested cadaver tendon onto my old one and attached it to the bone with little screws.

I know what yr all saying. Instant bionic arm. Awesome! Right? Well, yes and no. At least I now have the prospect of being able to recover the full range of motion in my left arm. After the surgery, I was in a cast for several weeks and then I had to wear this radical robo-brace on my arm to restrict my movement and make sure I didn’t re-injure it. As a consequence, I couldn’t type (good-bye blogo-sphere), drive or play guitar for several more weeks. Even now I’m still in physical therapy to get everything working normally again. No complaints from me, I feel lucky that the cadaver tendon hasn’t taken over in a struggle for control of my arm like something out of a cheap zombie slasher flick. I do still have some trouble playing guitar and it’s caused quite a delay in the recording for the new Earwig record. But things are back on track now. Check out these pictures of me rockin’ the robo-brace!