As you know from an earlier post on this blog, I had hand surgery done on my left hand back in July. The graphics on the left are the before and after pictures. As you can see, the recovery is pretty much complete. There’s still a bit of a scar showing, but with time it should be less noticeable. The day after I had the stitches pulled, I was in my backyard raking the beach. I probably should have waited a few more days before doing anything because I slightly reopened the top portion of the incision. As you can see from the photo, the top portion isn’t quite as cleanly healed as the rest of it.
The surgery itself was pretty interesting. I didn’t have them put me under. I avoid general anesthesia whenever possible. Instead, I had them perform what is called an arm block. They basically just deaden the arm muscle. You essentially have no real feeling in your arm and it seems like a dead weight if you try to move it. I was fully awake in the operating room and talking to the doctors and nurses. I could feel the surgeon as he cut into my hand and started to cut out the extra tissue. The surgeon let me look at my hand while he had it cut open. The inside of your hand is a very amazing piece of work. The blood flow to my hand was cut off so you could clearly see the blood vessels, muscles, tendons and bones. He had me move my finger, and as I did, you could see the tendon sliding back and forth on the back side of the finger. It was really cool. It’s times like these that I wish I had gone to medical school and become a surgeon. I think it would have been a great and rewarding career.
All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with the final results. My hand is back to normal and I’m pretty much doing everything I was before the surgery.
