Recovery Time

I have been off for 2 weeks due to my surgery on my arm. I had a staph infection (random) and it began with a swollen elbow. There was no significant cut or abrasion and no traumatic bump or bruise. At dinner two Saturdays ago my elbow swelled up until I couldn’t move it and then the swelling rad down my arm. I went to the doctor and they initially thought it was a bursa sac but then my fever indicated that I was infected.

DSC00029DSC00016A frozen waterfall on the Grand Mesa that is still ice covered. I went up with my boys on my first walk after surgery to see whether or not it was running yet. It’s beautiful once the snow begins to melt!

Once that happened I was admitted to the hospital and had surgery set up for the following day. I was surprised to say the least. I couldn’t believe that a little swelling demanded an overnight stay at the hospital and surgery. So they cut open my elbow and drained it out along with cleaning the staph that was in the arm. I am looking forward to using my arm again and rebuilding my strength.

Staph infections can be scary due to the fact that there are so many directions that they can take. I also lost about 10 pounds during the last two weeks, which is odd because I have just been eating and resting. I feel crappy due to the weight loss and need to put it back on in the next few weeks.

As far as how this impacts my climbing:

  • my goal of finishing my Unaweep Project will have to wait until this fall.
  • my fun Zion traverse challenge that was scheduled for June will most likely be postponed until fall.
  • it will not delay my third big wall that I want to establish closer to home,

These things happen and it is just a part of living. I am just grateful for living in a place where I can get the medical attention that I need just 5 minutes from where I live. Had the staph occurred in another wild location out of the country, there may have been very bad impacts on my health.

Stay healthy and keep climbing!


Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s