[story time] I Broke My Elbow & the Aftermath 20 Years Later

I’ve told you before that I had a bike accident over 20 years ago in Vietnam. In that accident, I injured my face all over, but I also broke a front tooth and my left elbow. Today, we’re going to talk about that elbow.

I hesitated a lot before publishing this story. I’ve only talked about it with a few people, but I thinkit’s important to share stories like this. Recently, a friend broke her elbow and my story reassured her, so I wanted to publish this post to reassure all the other broken elbows out there.

Welcome to the broken elbow club. It’s going to be okay !

The ER

So, when I fell, my elbow hit the concrete and I instantly knew I had broken something because it was impossible for me to straighten my arm. I could only hold my arm at 90 degrees, crying. Despite that, the pain was intense and the shock too great for me to know exactly what position I fell in, whether I was dragged on the road, or if I stayed still when I fell. When the accident happened, time seemed to slow down. I felt like I had to wake up from this nightmare, but no, it wasn’t a nightmare, it was reality. Having been lucky all my life, such an accident seemed unimaginable, and I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me.

I was immediately taken to the ER and since I was in pretty bad shape, I was thankfully seen very quickly, I had blood everywhere.

At that moment, I had no idea of the extent of the damage. I could barely feel anything in my upper lip, so I really thought I had lost all my front teeth.

And yet, a nurse examined me and said that the broken arm was the most serious injury, that the other injuries were superficial, that I wasn’t going to be disfigured, and that I had only broken half a tooth. Phew, first “good” news.

Then, it was only during the X-ray that the faces darkened, and I was kicked out of the room. I was a minor at the time. Like in a movie, the doctor wanted to speak privately with my parents, and they came out of the room looking sad. That’s when I understood it was worse than expected and that I wasn’t just going to get a cute little cast like everyone else: I had broken my elbow. And they were considering surgery.

Since it was getting late, it was decided that I would come back the next day to discuss the surgery, etc. That left me one night, first to disinfect the wounds on my face, but also to recover psychologically. I was simply put in a cast, but in an ugly way, with my arm fixed at 90 degrees.

The X-ray showed several fragments of broken bone, including a big one that had detached from the main bone. According to the doctor, I absolutely needed surgery to fix this fragment with a screw. And after a year, remove that screw. That meant two surgeries in one year.

Obviously, this solution was the worst for me because at the time, I was not only at the conservatory, but I had to pass the final exam to graduate from the conservatory a few weeks later. An elbow surgery wouldn’t have been compatible with that exam, because the recovery time was longer and I risked having to repeat a year at the conservatory because of it.

The miracle

That night, I slept in my mother’s bed. She just wanted to comfort me from the emotional shock, but instinct made her touch my elbow non-stop all night. And at some point, she felt my bone fragment through the cast (the one that had completely detached) and she pushed it back into place.

I know, it sounds completely crazy, but my mother has always had extraordinary intuition, and we’ve always thought she had a gift. But it was the first time she used her energy to heal someone. By the way, after that night, my mother was very sick for 3 weeks, because she didn’t know how to use her energy correctly and drained her strength to heal me.

Note: since then, my mother has trained more. Now, she can heal without using her own energy but just serves as an energy channel.

The next day, we went back for another X-ray. My mom told me about what had happened the night before. She was very enthusiastic and confident. For my part, I did feel a strong heat where she had put her hand, but I thought it might be because she had kept her hand there all night. So I had a little hope but not much.

What helped me a lot, I think, was that my mother kept telling me everything was going to be fine. Having someone repeatedly tell you that yes, everything will be fine (and actually believing it), is extremely reassuring, even if my mother isn’t a doctor and can’t read the future. I really needed to believe in a miracle and have good vibes around me. At no point did my parents talk to me about the “worst-case scenario.” We never imagined it. They never said anything negative; everything that came out of their mouths was positive and full of hope. I think it’s very important to have that positive mindset.

The verdict

Thanks to a connection, we got an appointment directly with the head of orthopedics at the hospital, with the X-ray from the day before. He asked for a second X-ray.

Since they now knew where the fracture was, they could take a much more precise X-ray (the machine adjusted itself to show the fragment much better).

Comparing the two X-rays, he opened his eyes wide and couldn’t understand why a bone fragment that had completely come loose the day before had reattached itself to the main bone. He immediately tossed aside the previous day’s X-ray, blamed the machine’s “imprecision,” and revised his colleague’s diagnosis: no surgery needed.

Of course, they never told him that my mother had treated me with energy the day before; otherwise, he would have kicked us out of the hospital, I think hahaha. I kept no X-rays, so I still don’t know if the difference between the two is actually due to the machine’s imprecision or the energy my mother sent. We really don’t care 😀 All I remember is that I almost got operated on twice, and in the end, I got away without any surgery.

The cast

I don’t remember if they removed the ugly cast from the previous day (I think they did, and put on a new one), but I ended up wearing a cast for about 3 weeks.

During those 3 weeks, taking a shower was harder. Luckily, in Vietnam, you could go to the hair salon and get your hair washed for cheap, so that’s what I did every 3 days. For washing, I could only take baths so I could rest the cast on the edge of the tub. At school, I occupied an entire table to rest my broken arm on and relieve my neck.

After a week, it started itching, and like everyone else, I grabbed chopsticks (JB’s note: chopsticks = the Asian eating utensil, not a bread stick. Here we’d use knitting needles) and slid one under the cast to scratch.

Meanwhile, I also had to treat the wounds on my face and repair my front tooth. I stayed with a yellow face for a month because I applied turmeric root on the new skin to avoid scarring and not be disfigured for life. All the facial wounds healed without leaving a trace. Unfortunately, my broken front tooth still makes me cry from time to time, but that’s another story. Anyway, looking at me today, it’s nearly impossible to see any aftermath of that accident.

The reason behind the accident was only told to me later. Apparently, my paternal extended family was searching for the graves of relatives (we lost some family members during the war, whose graves were never found). During the search, they dug up and disturbed the graves of complete strangers. That year, in the family, there were several broken arms and legs to punish us for this disrespect. Upon hearing the news and connecting the dots, my grandmother alerted the grave searchers, and my paternal family immediately stopped the search; we never found the relatives’ graves.

Second cast

After 3 weeks, another X-ray and the doctor was happy with the progress. He removed the cast and put on a kind of splint, but the lower part was a bit stiffer, which meant my elbow was at about 120 degrees. With this new setup, my arm was already less heavy, which was better for my neck, and I was allowed to do small movements.

Cast removed

Then, I don’t know after how long, he took it all off.

I was extremely disappointed. Because the pain, even though it wasn’t intense, was still there. And I couldn’t straighten my arm. I thought that after the cast, everything would go back to how it was, right away, but no.

Plus, my arm had shrunk in volume: it wasn’t very big to begin with, but almost all the muscle was gone, it was half the size of my right arm.

I also saw traces of my scratching: long purplish lines along my arm, and I was on the verge of despair: will I regain the use of my arm? Will I have these marks for life? Why did I scratch so much? So many unanswered questions, and I stayed in the bath washing my left arm, tears streaming nonstop.

But…

Physical therapy

That was the time I could FINALLY train. Little by little, I tried to straighten my arm a bit more, then a bit more. It hurt at first, then less. I trained when I could, but I can tell you I was extremely lazy. I didn’t go to a physical therapist for various reasons, but I think I should have. Once my arm could reach 150 degrees, I trained less and less. The other injuries were already taking up a lot of time and energy, so exercises weren’t at the top of my priority list. Especially since I’m right-handed, so there wasn’t much at stake for my left elbow.

I managed to pass the conservatory exam (electronic keyboard) with top marks. It was like nothing had happened; the examiners didn’t suspect a thing.

However, a few weeks after I healed, my nails started acting weird. They split, and the new nails gradually pushed out the old ones. I was really scared because I thought I’d end up without nails. It’s a bit hard to explain, but it was like having two layers of nails, and I had to wait for the new ones to fully grow in for the old ones to come off. At that time, there was a pandemic affecting animals (mad cow disease, I think), and one symptom was weird nails. So my classmates called me “mad cow” for months hahaha. I know that after such an accident, nails can also turn completely purple, but you shouldn’t be afraid. I think I was in a cast too long, so blood didn’t circulate properly to my nails, causing that incident.

The aftermath

So, since I’ve never had anyone to guide me through the exercises, I stopped them too early out of sheer laziness, and now I’m left with what JB calls ‘a crooked arm,’ meaning I can’t fully extend my left arm to 180° like my right one. I think if I’d kept up with the exercises, I would have regained the same mobility as my normal arm. But hey, I was too young to understand and extremely lazy.

For me, there are no lasting effects. It’s purely cosmetic, because it’s rare to extend your arm to 180° like that.

Here’s my left arm 20 years later:

Does it bother me? No.

Do I have pain? No. However, if I carry a bag on my left arm for too long, I feel my arm getting tired. I also think I wouldn’t be able to do push-ups or complicated yoga poses because my arms wouldn’t be the same length. But it doesn’t stop me from, say, swimming or jumping rope.

Looking at the X-ray, you can see that my bone fragment has reattached to the main bone, and the gap between them has solidified. The other small fragments have gone who-knows-where.

Anyway, instead of having a sharp bone like a normal elbow at the site of the break, I have a slightly rounder bone, that’s all.

What to do when you break your elbow?

Note: I’m not a doctor. The to-do list above is based on my personal experience and was kindly completed by my friend. I AM NOT GIVING MEDICAL ADVICE. Every case is unique. I was treated in Vietnam, so the process might be a bit different. I advise you to consult your doctor first and possibly get a second opinion before making any major decision.

1. Go straight to the emergency room
2. Don’t make any decisions until you’ve spoken with an orthopedic surgeon. If you don’t know any, you can look on sites like Doctolib for a list of orthopedic surgeons available the same day and book an appointment.
3. If surgery is needed, don’t hesitate to ask for a second opinion
4. Don’t completely dismiss alternative methods, even though the orthopedic surgeon’s advice is the most important and must be followed absolutely. Alternative methods only help speed up recovery and make pain more bearable:
   • In my case, my mother treated me to make my case ‘less difficult.’ If you don’t have a mom like mine, consider seeing a healer or a magnetizerright away, even from a distance. If you don’t believe in it, go at least for the pain.
   • This accident left me with more psychological scars than physical ones, so don’t hesitate to see a therapist, sophrologist, or hypnotist right away to work through the trauma. It’s super important.
   • After the accident, especially after spending too much time in the hospital, your energy vibration will be lower. Recharge your energy by going immediately to a place where you feel good. Surround yourself with positive-energy people. Meditate, imagining that you’re sending energy to your elbow yourself.
   • You can also visit an herbalist to get herbal teas to remineralize your body (it will help the bone solidify better). You can also buy comfrey there. Comfrey macerate applied locally, even if it doesn’t smell good, will help a lot. You can also do a course of Quinton water.
5. Next, you should see a physiotherapist and do exercises all the way through, unlike me: the most important thing at the beginning, especially for a broken elbow, is to regain mobility and movement : straighten the arm, then turn it outward (supination). Gaining muscle is much easier afterwards. Mobility should be your priority.
6. There will be side effects after the cast is removed: in my case, the arm was half the size, there were scratch marks and weird nails. The good news is that external injuries on the arm heal well and leave few marks compared to, say, facial skin. There are things we thought were insurmountable at the time, but they will eventually go away.
7. To track progress, you can take a photo like mine to better compare the mobility of the broken elbow versus the normal elbow.
8. If you break the elbow of your dominant arm and you work on a computer, use a vertical mouse, which will limit the elbow’s movement.
9. Finally, broken elbows are harder to treat and heal, but yes, they do heal. Our bodies are extraordinary, don’t forget it.

Once again, I’m not a doctor and am only sharing my experience. I don’t have a name of a healer to give you. Each person is sensitive to their own vibrations, so it’s up to you to choose your specialist or healer. Listen to your heart, and believe in yourself, believe in your body’s ability to regenerate. That’s the most important thing!