a new tactic on my wrist

On the way out of my doctor's office on Thursday morning I took off the brace i've been wearing for eight months (except when I had a cast on instead) and dropped it in the trash. I felt like a cripple leaving their crutches at Lourdes. It's not that my wrist is healed, it's not, but my doctor and I decided to try a different approach.

The radius bone continues to have a significant gap just below the wrist where no bone material has grown. Despite keeping the wrist immobilized with the brace, and treatment with a bone stimulator, there's been no change in several months. It may be that bone will never grow there, or it may be that growth is still coming and is just delayed. On the other hand I have no pain. And my biggest hardship is the loss of strength and flexibility in the wrist from not using it for so long.

So we decided to ditch the brace and to let me start using my wrist normally. I do need to be careful because the wrist is fragile with the missing bone. But meanwhile I'll get to regain my strength and flexibility, and return to the activities that I enjoy and keep me healthy, like riding my bike and lifting weights. The doctor will continue to monitor me, but we're going to wait two months for the next check-up instead of just one month. And if the bone remains unhealed and starts to cause me some problem we can always intervene at that point.