Nobody prepares you for the first shower.
Or the first toileting.
Or the first xyz activities that either need both hands or the hand that you had surgery for.
You are discharged with a dressing, a leaflet about exercises, and a hand you cannot use. The exercises get explained carefully. How to wash your hair, do up a bra, cut food or open a jar does not get mentioned at all.
Here is the part that was missing.
Showering
- Waterproof cast cover. A proper reusable one with a rubber seal. Cheap, and worth buying before your operation rather than after
- The bin bag and tape method works if you have nothing else. Tape to skin, not over the cast, and check it before you get in
- Never soak a cast or a dressing, even if you think it dried out afterwards. A damp cast against skin causes maceration and infection risk
- Sit down. A shower stool removes the balance problem you now have with one arm out of action
- Pump-top everything. Shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste. You cannot unscrew a cap one-handed while wet
If the dressing does get wet, tell your surgical team the same day rather than hoping.
Dressing
- Operated arm goes in first, comes out last. This single rule makes more difference than anything else on this page
- Loose sleeves, wide necks, front-opening tops. Buy one size up for the duration
- Bras: fasten at the front, then rotate round, or buy a front-fastening one for six weeks
- Slip-on shoes. Elastic laces if you insist on trainers
- Trousers with elastic waists. Buttons and zips are a two-handed skill you will rediscover with some feeling
Eating and the kitchen
- A damp cloth under a plate or bowl stops it sliding. This is the cheapest piece of adaptive equipment in existence
- A rocker knife, or just pre-cut food for a fortnight
- Jar opener that mounts under a cupboard, or ask someone to crack the lids on everything in the fridge before they leave
- Electric tin opener if you are cooking for yourself
- Batch cook and freeze BEFORE the operation. Future you will be grateful
The damp cloth under the plate is the thing patients come back and thank me for. Not the splint. The cloth.
The bathroom conversation nobody has
Toileting one-handed, and specifically non-dominant-handed, is the thing people are most embarrassed to ask about and most relieved to have addressed.
Practise before your operation if it is planned. Wet wipes help. A bidet attachment is a modest cost and is genuinely transformative for a six-week recovery. There is nothing undignified about solving this in advance.
Set the house up before the operation. Afterwards you will be tired, sore, and in no state to problem-solve.
The week-before list
- Cast cover, shower stool if you live alone, pump bottles
- Meals cooked and frozen; lids loosened on everything
- Front-opening clothes washed and accessible at waist height
- Anything heavy moved down from high shelves
- Pain relief bought and in the house
- Practise brushing teeth, eating and writing with the other hand for a few days. It feels silly and it shortens the adjustment considerably
- Arrange lifts. You will not be driving — see driving after a hand injury
Protecting the recovery while you adapt
Two things quietly undo good surgery in the first fortnight.
- The hand hanging down all day. Keep it above the heart as much as you can and move the fingers while it is up. See swelling and stiffness
- The joints nobody mentioned. If your shoulder and elbow are free, move them several times a day. Stiff shoulders after hand surgery are common, avoidable, and annoying to fix
And move exactly what you were told to move, no more and no less. See stiff hand after a cast.
Ring your team if
- The dressing gets soaked
- Increasing pain after day three, or redness spreading
- Fingers becoming swollen, dusky, cold or numb
- Fever, or discharge with an odour
- The cast or splint feels tight enough to throb
The operation lasts an hour. Living around it lasts six weeks, and almost nobody plans for the six weeks.
See also sleeping after hand surgery and returning to work.
Every article on this site is written using the Closing Window Method: name the window your condition runs on, find where you are in it, and act while it’s still open.