Rehab and Recovery November 2014- September 2015

Starting day 4 post-surgery, November 23rd, 2014, I was allowed to do trampoline, fast track, ‘sweat’ condition, leg conditioning, run, with the clunky blue cast. Two weeks post-surgery I had the cast changed to a lighter weight red cast that I would keep until the end of January, 2015.

I was free to do all I could at the gym, wearing the cast of course. That meant a lot of conditioning, running, vaulting over the table into the pit and fast track work.

I knew I had a follow up MRI in January to see if the bone graft achieved a blood supply and that this was the biggest hurdle as the capitate bone does not have a large blood supply, but Dr. Monument and I were not worried. I was eating healthy, resting and staying active at the gym, all things that boded well for great success in bone formation. He also wanted to see if the bone would keep the new height he had achieved in surgery (about 19mm). Both of those goals were attainable I thought!  Other capitate bone replacements around the world were unsuccessful because of a failure to obtain a blood supply, but I was not worried at all. I had no pain in the wrist/cast, I was running, tumbling, conditioning and training 22-24 hours per week throughout the whole post-surgery period and I was a young growing kid!

In the three months I was casted or splinted, plus the one month being splinted before the November surgery, I was able to really work on my fast track tumbling and vault run. I had no wrist pain at all.  I learned many new skills during this time including whip triple twist, whip double full, front layout double front tuck, front layout 2 ½ twist, whip 1 ½ twist to front layout 1 ½ twist and lots more. It was great to keep learning skills even though I had a cast on.

Flexibility was pretty easy to keep up though I had to be creative for bridge stretch over a pommel. 

Pommel was a little tough to keep going on without arms, but I hooked up two slings and would do pommel circles that way. 

I kept up 24 hours per week conditioning, running, vault runs, trampoline and fast track until I saw Dr. Monument for the January MRI assessment. This was the critical appointment. Did the bone graft take? 

The news about the MRI was fantastic! Dr. Monument was thrilled tell us that the capitate replacement was a success!  He came running out of surgery from another patient, down the hall to see me and right away pulled my MRI up on a computer show me! He was so excited to show a full blood supply on that new bone made completely from bone marrow and my stem cells. He said the bone graft is healing extremely well and has blood supply. !!!!! YAY!!! This is beyond expectations. Also, he said there was no sign of a cyst returning at all. The first time a full capitate replacement succeeded in getting a full blood supply! Nice to be in the record books!

 After 9 long weeks, the cast could come off and be replaced with a splint for another month. Soon I could start range of motion exercises with my physiotherapist, Nicole Hunter, for the wrist.

Even more good news, the MRI showed no sign of the cyst returning. Dr. Monument will keep following up with CT Scans and other tests to keep an eye on it, but it looks like I’m tumor free and on the road back to full use of my hand and wrist!

The next months would be slowly gaining range of motion (once that was at 80% I could start strengthening the wrist), then strengthening the wrist, finally putting weight on my wrist, first with grip (rings, high bar, p bars), then with flat hand (pommel, floor, vault). This would take a long long time because the wrist and whole arm had to get strong again. Every week I was making milestones, so it was good times!

 Simple things like my first handstand on rings, first giant on cheat straps then on real high bar, first swings on p bars, were all big events for me. Parallel bars came really slowly because my wrist lacked axial deviation (flexibility) after so long splinted, casted and with me growing during that time. My physiotherapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist, chiropractor and coaches never gave up. We all kept working to get more mobility in my wrist and still do to this day 17 months post-surgery. At the same time Dr. Monument followed up every other week to ensure the bone graft continued to heal (there was a mushy bit at the bottom that he said might never solidify, but it actually did  in August 2015!!!) and mobility increased.

It wasn’t til June 1^st that I was cleared to start flat hand loading. I slowly did little bits of pommel horse (mushroom) after that, some vaulting and tumbling using my hands. By July I was pretty much back on 5 events and slowly doing bits of the 6^th, pommel horse. I could see gains every week. I also was invited to the national superstar camp in Toronto, Ontario, coinciding with the Pan Am Games. This was an awesome experience to be back with my teammates from across the country and watch our senior team members compete at the Pan Am Games. 

I could also see that some things had actually gotten better since the surgery and long break from support work at the gym. I always had trouble with the technique in double layout dismount from high bar. My first attempts post-surgery, the technique was better and soon I was twisting and even landing double twisting double layouts! Some things were super frustrating like tkatchev that I felt like I had to re learn yet again! My vault run and power was definitely better…soon I was twisting my tsuk layout and even landing a double twist on soft.  My rings quickly became stronger with yamawaki jonosson and giants coming easier and more solid. There are always so many pluses to an injury. They are hard to see in the moment, but later, you can see how you became stronger in different ways.

More work on p bars and pommel did start to give me some wrist soreness, but not too much.  The good news is that with all that loading, new scans showed the bone graft was actually gaining strength and density and had not lost  1 mm of height since the original surgery! By early fall, 2015, I was back on all 6 events and starting to put together my Novice compulsory and optional skills and parts of routines. Then the next bump in the road occurred! But that story is for another post.