Hi Karl,
This injury is bad enough without it being caused by an assault. How awful! My sincere sympathies.
I’ve been crazy bored and went back to work part-time, from home, after a month – easy for me with a desk job but obviously not for you. My point is to make sure you are intellectually active, even if you can’t be physically active: one thing I regret is that during my month off, all I did was binge watch stuff on Netflix etc and web surf a lot. That was entertaining and passed the time, but didn’t do a lot for me mentally or emotionally. I’ve felt so useless! So my suggestion is that, if you’re inclined, you might want to look at iTunes University or other free online classes – I wish I had thought to do that instead of wasting my time on entertainment. I might have a new skill or at least know more about something new….
I know what you mean about muscle wasting. The difference in my two legs is remarkable (and I wasn’t all the muscular to begin with). But I don’t know if it is advisable to work your upper body too hard though, you should probably ask your PT about that. Healing a fracture takes a huge amount of physical energy (Shlomi has some info on that and there is other info on the web) – you need extra calories, vitamins, minerals and extra protein – I don’t know if you might be taking anything away from the healing process. That said, it’s been a hard transition for me from wheel chair to walker and a lot has been the upper body weakness (that I have always had). There’s probably a happy medium somewhere?
Lastly, my husband has taken over everything, he has been my rock and I too feel guilty about the load he has taken on. I know the best thank you is to get well, but still, we must come up with some extra-special way to show our spouses how grateful we are, any ideas?
You are fortunate that you were fit and healthy when this happened and this will help you heal quickly as long as you get the nutrition you need….
Best wishes!
– Susan