One morning about a month after surgery, I decide to remove the splint, snip out the sutures from the three incisions, and try moving my fingers. First just wiggling them, then little thrusts. The swelling has gone down, and I can almost cup my fingers.
My wrist, however, is rigid as wood. It's swollen, deformed, and still faintly yellow. Any movement at all makes me jump. Doc Wasser is concerned that it might not be healing properly. My first second opinion recommends another surgery, a radical procedure that involves slicing me open from little finger to elbow, sawing off bones, drilling holes—a surgeon's wet dream. My second second opinion thinks that advice unwise and pronounces that I can expect 80 to 90 percent recovery of mobility and strength, plus serious arthritis. Given that my physical life is not only my passion but my livelihood, this doesn't exactly set my one hand to clapping. My third second opinion comes from a hand surgeon who also happens to be an accomplished climber and kayaker:
"No surgery and no predictions," he tells me. "Mark, do your rehab like your life depends on it. Expect recovery to take six to 12 months."
I know the drill, and it's going to hurt. Rehabilitation, conducted with religious fervor and monklike discipline, is the only way to get back to doing what you did to get hurt in the first place.
I already have every wrist rehabilitator ever made: two sets of grips with different tensions, two individual finger grips with different tensions, two different rubber webs, a set of small weights, a climber's rubber squeeze ball, a golfer's twistable grip stick. They are strewn about the house—in the office, in the bathroom, in the bedroom, in the kitchen.
My physical therapist says, "Compliance is usually the problem. It hurts, so patients don't do it. You have the opposite problem." She tells me to do only one session a day. I do my best to keep it down to three.
I use the whirlpool at the gym every other day. I hold my injured appendage under the hot water and slowly twist, rotate, spell the alphabet with my fingers. It is not tedious; it's therapy. Another chance to calm down, take time, breathe.
Some days my wrist appears to be improving and I'm exuberant. I see myself in the future, rock-climbing again, jamming big, strong hands into wide cracks, swinging ice tools into frozen waterfalls, pushing my girls on the tree swing, hugging my wife. Some days I know I've overtrained and must stop exercising, and doubts about my recovery emerge from the shadows like boxers I can't possibly beat with just one hand.
These are the emotional ups and downs of rehab. I try to accept it. Acceptance is one of the greatest lessons a serious injury can teach. Unfortunately, it will probably take a few more wrecks before I learn it.
My mountaineering partner, John, and I have had to cancel our climbing expedition to Tibet. That's fine—the mountains won't go anywhere. In lieu of Tibet, he's invited me to do the Eiger with him this summer, slyly giving me a rehab goal.
Pat has gotten me over to the indoor climbing gym. I can barely hang on, of course, so we work the wall for only half an hour. Then we do hundreds of sit-ups to prepare for a route we hope to climb when the weather gets warm.
In the first month after the surgery, my neighbor Reed took me out walking almost every day. We do this whenever either one of us is injured: a fast clip for an hour or two to get the blood pumping. We talk about everything under the sky.
Over the winter, we skate-skied together in the Medicine Bows, without poles. We'll keep doing that right through May here in Wyoming. I may have twigs for arms, but I'll have Apolo Ohno thighs.
Sue is running stadium stairs with me. She talks, and I try to keep up.
And I'm back to bicycling to school with Teal and Addi. Simply riding beside them is a joy.
They say it's the circulating blood that causes the healing, but I believe it's the flowing love.
