Write a Blog Post

I get poked fun at because I blog.  I'm not exactly sure why.  Hubby claims that he blogged before it was actually called blogging.  He stopped but for some reason likes to poke fun at me for putting out family adventures online.  So I was a little surprised when he looked at me and told me to...

"Go write a blog post"

I looked at him confused and he explained that it was low impact and would probably be good for my fingers.  For the last two weeks my right hand has been mummified due to my incompetence with a steak knife.  Yes, I sliced my fingers carving a pumpkin.  You can catch the beginning here.  It's been a very long two weeks.  I was fortunate enough to have the stitches removed on Friday.

So the run down.  I sliced my fingers and Hubs drove like a madman to the closest ER.  To the point where even holding a shirt on my bloody hand told him to slow down.  When I got to the ER they actually asked me if I wanted the shirt back.  Uhm...no...that's okay.  We sat around and waited even though they put us on the fast track.  Clover went with us and the whole time I felt bad because we were supposed to do an event at the Zoo that night for Halloween.  I was very close to crying when I told her we weren't going.  She took it like a trooper.  She was actually excited to go to the hospital because she "wants to be a doctor when she grows up".  The whole time she was dancing around and putting on a show.

I had a two very nice nurses.  Through all of the my medical experiences, I have had some wonderful nurses.  It was a profession I thought I wanted to do until I figured out I didn't have the stomach to handle it.  So all I have to say is God bless nurses!

We got a Physician's Assistant who was totally cool.  He joked around with us and talked through everything he was doing.  I was a little freaked out at this point but just continued to chat up the hubs while the P.A. shot my hand up and stitched everything up.  We even talked about M*A*S*H (that is where he won me over).   Luckily by then our friend had arrived to keep an eye on Clover so she didn't have to watch all of that.  Afterwards we hit up IHOP for some pancakey goodness.

The P.A. sent us over to a surgical center for a follow up.  As pleasant as the ER visit was, I just assumed that the next Dr's visit would be as well.  I was wrong.  I tried calling them to make an appointment but I couldn't get anyone on the phone.  So we went down there like the P.A. had instructed us to do.  We waited three hours in the waiting room.  At one point I contemplated leaving for lunch and coming back.  They finally called me back and stuck me in a room where I waited some more.  Then another Physician's Assistant comes in.  There wasn't a whole lot of information given.  He comes in and is chatty about what I did and talks me up.  Not really offering any information about my hand.  He does the nerve sensitivity test and that was fine.  Then he asked me to bend my fingers.  This part is hard because my fingers look like breakfast sausages and the pain medicine I took in the morning has worn off sitting in their waiting room.   So that hurt.  I can't bend my pinky so he leaves to get the doc.  Who apparently was on lunch because he comes in eating a sandwich.  Doesn't really introduce himself and seems to have no social skills what-so-ever.  It looks like I cut one of the tendons in my pinky.  He tells the nurse to show me some papers that they should have already shows me and starts talking about me having surgery.

WHOAH!

This is where I come to a screeching halt.  Dr. Social starts talking about knocking me out to keep my muscles from twitching and how they are going to have to split open my hand.  He starts talking about keeping the wound open for 21 days to check the sutures on the tendon.  Then doing 10 weeks of physical therapy.  I am sitting there like a deer looking into a pair of headlights trying to process everything he is saying.  I asked a few questions and I don't know if Dr. Social didn't like my questions or what because the answers I got back where snotty in my opinion.  Did you know that everything in America is optional?  I didn't but after I asked about the surgery that is the response I got.

So they want to knock me out, cut me open, fish up my tendon like a dropped stitch in knitting, leave me open for 21 days, close me up, have me recover and then do 10 weeks of physical therapy.  All of that for the possibility not even a guarantee of gaining movement in the tip of my pinky.  It took me about two minutes to make my decision.  No thanks.  But as soon as I told them I was even considering NOT having surgery everyones attitude changed and they basically kicked me out.  They told me that if I changed my mind that I had three weeks before my tendon receded to my wrist and it would be twice as much work.  If I didn't want to do the work in the first place...why would I want to do extra work?  So they braced me up and kicked me out.

When I went back to have my stitches pulled, the nurse read that I didn't want the surgery.  As soon as she mentioned it her attitude changed.  She pulled my stitches and kicked me out.  No after care instructions or follow up.  I get that it's mostly a surgical center but wow.  You won't let us cut you open so we are done with you!  Now get out!  They said they would send a request for surgery out to my insurance company "just in case".  Based on the stellar-out-of-this-world care I received at your facility let me sign right up for that...I'm being sarcastic.  Thought I would state that "just in case" you didn't get it.  

So that is basically the story up to this point.  I am happy to report that I wrote most of that with both hands.  Which I am very happy about because that whole typing with one hand thing was driving me nuts.  It's hard to slow my thoughts down to the speed of handwriting or typing with one hand.

I guess the next step is probably to make a follow up with my primary doctor just to have everything checked and see if there is anything I should be doing to aid in my recovery.  The wounds are healing.  Things are looking better every day.  I realize that I did this to myself and there is no one to blame but the person staring back at me in the mirror.  On the same note, accidents happen.  Each day I forgive myself a little bit more and that makes me feel a bit better.  I think keeping it on the positive helps me heal a little faster.  Or at least that is what I am telling myself for now.