Surgery and Recovery

It’s been six days since the surgeon opened up my hand to try to restore movement to the pinky. At that point, the Dupuytren’s contracture had progressed to where I only had about 30° of movement. (Click the link for a lovely photo.)

This was causing trouble with things like reaching into a pocket or putting on a glove. It was also messing with my typing. When I finally met with the surgeon, he said I should have come in before it got to this point. Earlier on in the progression, they can do less invasive procedures to help. At this point, there wasn’t much to try except for surgery.

The surgeon said things went pretty well. He was able to get the fingers pretty much straight, though they may not stay perfectly straight as they heal. I was bandaged up and put in a splint to try to hold the finger straight as much as possible.

I went back after two days, so he could remove the initial splint and take a look. He also removed the drains, the little plastic straw-like things. This was around the point that I went into shock for a few minutes. Felt like I was going to throw up, broke out in sweat. Fun stuff!

Once I recovered, I got my first real look at the incision and stitches. Just in time for Halloween season. We switched to a remoldable splint that I could take off to do stretches and therapy.

I go in on Wednesday to get half the stitches out. Eventually we will start cutting back on how much I have to wear the splint. I’ll probably have it on for overnight for a while yet, though. Everything seems to be healing fairly well so far. He doesn’t think I’ll get full movement back, but I’m pushing to get as close as possible.

I am able to drive and do most things I need to do, but not everything. I’m doing this blog post on my phone using voice dictation, which is a pain. And I really want to be able to start typing and working on book stuff. I’ve also had to stop most of my exercise routine for now.

Mostly, I’m just bored and frustrated and ready to be doing stuff again. It’s giving me a lot more sympathy for how frustrated Amy used to get when she was recovering from her knee surgeries.

The worst part? I was all ready to tell people I had a lightning bolt scar because I stopped a killing curse with my bare hand. But with everything JK Rowling has been going on about lately, I really don’t feel like doing a lot of Harry Potter references. Any other suggestions for good lightning bolt scar stories?