Surgery and The Aftermath

To make sure I wasn't overwhelming you all with a massive post, I split my surgery story into two manageable posts.  Here is a continuation of my earlier post, Surgery: The Buildup.

Thursday
The big day had arrived.  I woke up, got ready for school, and had some tea for breakfast (remember, I wasn't allowed to eat anything).  The worst part about the day was I would constantly get hungry; my stomach seemed to never stop rumbling.  Drinking tea and water helped a bit, but after ten I just had to try my best to avoid thinking about food.  Overall, I was really happy I went to school because I completed two crucial tests and turned in some homework that was important to hand in.  It felt good to release a bunch of stress and being busy kept me preoccupied from thinking about the surgery.  Every once in a while, I would start freaking out about the IV and the plate, the stitches and the anesthesia.

On the outside, I looked like this...

GIF courtesy of Mashable

But really I felt like this.

GIF courtesy of Mashable

Surgery: The Buildup

In case you didn't read my previous post, I broke my collarbone two weeks ago.  Last week's post was an account of how it happened (the details and such).  This post is about the buildup to my clavicle surgery and how crazy the past few days have been for me.

Monday
Over the weekend it was decided that I would meet with an orthopedic doctor to discuss the pros and cons of natural healing and the pros and cons of surgery.  We set an appointment for mid-morning on Monday.  I left in the middle of second period and got back just before fourth period.  During the visit we learned many things, the most unnerving was that the decision was all mine.  It wasn't black or white whether I should get surgery or let it heal on its own.  That left me in an unending loop of silently arguing with myself, weighing the downsides to each course of action.

On the one hand letting my collarbone heal on its own would mean no cutting into my body, no risk of infection, and no scar.  However, my shoulder would be shorter because the bones were overlapping and displaced 1.8 centimeters.  I would have a large, circular bump where they would heal together.  Lastly, there was a five to ten percent chance that my collarbone wouldn't heal at all due to both the overlapping and displacement factors.  Basically, the bones were not in good alignment.

On the other hand, surgery would almost guarantee the bones would heal as there was a less than one percent chance of not healing.  It would set the bones creating proper alignment so my shoulder would be straight, without a big lump.  However, I would have a scar the length of my clavicle and permanent numbness (about quarter-sized) below the incision because the doctor would need to cut through the clavicle nerve.  A titanium plate would be put on top of the break, and six screws would be used to keep it in place (three on each side).  Although it would be out-patient surgery (meaning 1 hour surgery, 4 hours total time, and then I would go home), I would still miss at least a day of school, something I knew would be difficult to make up.

Which would you choose?  A scar or a bump?

Tengo una Clavícula Rota

I have a broken clavicle (aka collarbone).

Of course, the big question is: How did it happen?

Well, I broke it during a soccer game, my second one that day, in fact.  Here is a lengthly, detailed description from my point of view.  At least, this is what I think went down.  I'm not sure I remember it quite right.  You'd have to ask a witness.

Here I was, dribbling the ball.  I was going down the right side of the field, between the center circle and the sideline.  There was a girl from the other team coming at me.  Just before she got to me, I kicked the ball away and put in a little burst of speed, attempting to run around her.  However, she came in and collided with my right knee and thigh which caused me to tumble forward.  At this point, I may or may not have been suspended in air.  I think I was.  My momentum carried me forward and gravity pulled me toward the ground.  Now, I have been in this situation before with almost the same exact tackle.  That time, I simply rolled out of it.  I was tripped, went off the ground, tucked in my head and shoulder, hit the ground, rolled a bit, then popped up like nothing happened.  Literally, I didn't feel a thing, not even a bruise.  Keep in mind all of this happened in seconds so it was more of natural instincts kicking in that left me pleasantly surprised afterward when nothing hurt.

This time was different.

Some Art to Shake Things Up

Great news!  I remembered to take (almost) step-by-step pictures of one of my art projects.  What I mean by almost is I may have forgotten to photograph a couple steps.  Even though I have been taking the half-year jewelry/metals art class since January, I keep forgetting to take pictures.  This time, I made sure to do it.  I have also been eating to post about something other than soccer.  First, there is the high probability you readers are bored of it and second, I don’t really feel like describing how we tied, again, despite the face we were up 2-0 (so it really felt like a loss).

For this art project, we made pendents which will go on a necklace.  These pendents consisted of two pieces of metal that were soldered together (solder is pronounced with a silent “l,” like “sodder”).   Soldering is a technique where two pieces of metal are connected through a lot of heat and tiny bits of metal that act as glue (between the two pieces) when melted.  My last project involved putting two layers of metal by cold-connection which is accomplished by using rivets.  Riviting is a whole other process, but the point is each project incorporates a new method of metal making, each one harder than the last.

Another requirement of the pendents was the piece had to have negative space, or in special cases, just a really complicated top piece design.  I decided to have negative space with a relatively simple top piece.  If you don’t understand what is being described here, don’t worry, it will make more sense when you see the pictures.

The first step was designing the piece and drawing it out on paper.

I decided to go with a moon (representing water) and fire.  These two things symbolize opposites and balance (at least, to me).  They do come from the show, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," if they seemed familiar.  My plan was to have the bottom piece be nickel silver and the top piece (the fire) be brass which looks like gold.  My negative space would come from sawing a crescent moon out of the nickel silver.  Of course, we had to brainstorm other designs as well.  One of my other options was a leaf where the veins would be a sheet of metal on top another sheet of metal.

Next, put in a metal order and acquire your metal.

Nickel silver and brass squares of metal.

On a plain piece of paper, I drew out my design, cut it out, and glued it onto my metal.  I used rubber cement so I could just peel it off when I was done sawing.

This is just a simple outline of my bottom piece.

In this class, we use a thin handsaw to cut our metal.

 Then, cut out either top or bottom piece.  In my case it was the bottom piece.

Bottom piece.

Follow with sawing out the other piece.

Top piece.

Put them on top of each other to make sure everything fits right.

As you can see, I needed to do some filing in order to shorten the ends of the fire.
I also did filing to touch up all the other edges.

Here is another picture of my pieces.

After filing and sanding the pieces (sanding helps the solder a bit), I washed my pieces extremely well with dish soap.  Washing removes any oils from the metal; it is very important to have a clean piece when soldering.  Sorry, I don't have a picture of this.

Now on to the hard part: soldering.  Since this is a pretty complicated process that would take to long to explain in detail, here is a picture of when I am finished soldering my pieces together.

As I mentioned earlier, soldering involves quite a bit of heat.  Little torches are used and when you heat up metal to this degree, it does't exactly look pretty.  The green stuff you see is called flux, which is a alien-green watery liquid that you paint onto where you want the flux to flow.  Soldering also causes fire-scale on a piece.  However, all of this goes away after putting your piece in the pickle for a few minutes.  The pickle is a chemical that gets rid of heat coloring on metal.

Upon taking it out of the pickle, my piece looked like this.

Much better, right?

You might have noticed that these are not the same colors I started out with, and I still needed to do some cleaning up around the fire.  This is where sanding comes in, once more, because it removes the pickle, like scratching off a coat of paint.  Afterwards, I buffed it to make it look much more shiny and painted Liver of Sulfur (a chemical that colors the metal) on the fire to add contrast.  This took me a couple of tries because I couldn't get it "just right."  Oh, and I drilled a hole at the top to the necklace string.

Unfortunately, I got so excited that I forgot to take pictures of the previous actions, so here is what my piece looked like at the end of class on Friday.

I kind of like it, but I kind of don't, you know what I mean? ;)

I may or may not change it next class because I have yet to decide if I like how the fire looks.  I kind of wanted it lighter, without bits of blue and purple, more of a dark golden color, but who knows?  Maybe I'll change my mind after thinking about it over the next few days.