Update on my thumb job. Outpatient surgery went very well yesterday and my doc said I’ll make a full recovery. We got into the hospital at 11:30am and out the door at 4:15pm.
Before the event. With 5 days into the first fix I’m doing okay on pain. However, I suspected that will change!
Doc cutting off my cast. He cut around the art work and he said he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. It even came home as a souvenir.
If you never had a nerve block it’s almost worth trying…..once. The anesthesiologist finds a nerve and only numbs a particular area. In my case it was my right arm from shoulder to fingers. Essentially it turned my arm into a lump of meat that I had zero control over. On several occasions I found myself trying to scratch a phantom hand. The feeling was so real that I’d reach out and scratch the air, all the while my real hand was 16″ away in a brace…..very weird.
Along with my souvenir cast the real and very permanent additions I now have are a titanium plate held in place with 6 (1.5 mm diameter) titanium screws. Having spent a good deal of time in my past careers playing with metals I know that my new addictions will out late me by many lifetimes. As we used to say years ago about titanium “it will never lose it shape, color, texture, or rust, rot, warp, fade in any way….ever”. In other words there here to stay.
The final results. Now all I need to do is lay low, let the meds work as this hurts like a mofo and get back on my feet.
Looking from the palm side.
Looking the other way.
This was the initial fracture.
alan j quinn 