loss & compensation

Yesterday when the OT was excited about watching me do my little exercises w/ the wound uncovered, I was puzzled about why the muscles you could see under the graft were straining so much, but I still couldn't lift my wrist.  Of course this is what the OT is all about.  I can't lift my wrist b/c the ECRL, the muscle that did that job is gone.  Sitting on the table in a pathology lab in Houston. Meanwhile, the other muscles are straining, to no avail, because they haven't yet learned how to do the work of lifting my wrist.  But, through OT, they can, and will, as long as I'm diligent.  Which I must be.