Stuff and Such

This morning I did something I haven’t done in over a month… I washed my left arm! Why? Because today was the first day that I was allowed to get it wet — and it was scary. I kept wincing every time a drop of water his my arm — not because it hurt, but because I was scared it would hurt!
Yesterday the plastic surgeon removed this giant yellow padding he had sewed into the healthy parts of my arm, and we took our first look at the skin graft. It’s a healthy pink, which means the new skin is growing into place. He was confident enough in it to let me take my bandage off once a day to shower. They also took the stitches out of my hip, where the donor skin came from, so that itches a whole lot less. It was a painful visit, but totally worth it, and I can carefully do some things with my left arm now. This morning I held my coffee in my left hand, while I opened the door with my right hand! That may sound lame to you, but it was exciting for me!
I also discovered, to my disappointment, that I’m no longer able to completely straighten my left arm. After my elbow incident in November had mostly healed up, I was supposed to start physical therapy to regain my range of motion. But then Elevate hit before I’d scheduled it, and I shredded the same arm. It’ll be a couple months before I’m allowed to do the kind of exercise necessary for PT, so until then, I’m going to be stuck with a somewhat permanently bent arm…
In Benjamin news, he’s started this new thing he does that’s so hilarious! I guess his vision, and comprehension is getting good enough now, that he can sort of tell where he is. Where this gets funny is when he falls asleep in between locations — and since he falls asleep every time we start the car, that’s pretty much all the time. When he wakes up, suddenly in a different place than he was before, he gets this look on his face like: what… the…? How… how did I get here?
His eyes dart around the room, and he pulls his head back, like he can’t for the life of him, figure out how he could be in the church one minute, and at home the next minute. We just sit there and laugh at him…
My talk at church went well last night — I think. I haven’t worked up the courage to watch the DVD yet. I spoke twice, each version had pros and cons, but over-all I think I managed to spit out what I wanted to say. I’m hoping to edit the DVD together with my slides and post it on Google Video eventually…
Update: Watched the DVD… the best part is at the end when the music starts playing, and I’m singing along to myself — with the mic still on!! Loser!