Too purty to live in town.....

6/5/07

I just got back from my appt with my hand surgeon. Last week I had a CAT scan done because it was hard for my surgeon to see by the xrays if the bone was healing under the hardware that was put in. I have had very little pain lately and have slowly been working to regain the mobility and strength in my arm. I truly thought things were going well and expected to be told that everything was fine and to come back in 4 months for a final check before being discharged as his patient. That didn’t happen and I’m in shock right now.

Let me begin by saying that my hand surgeon is among the best in the area. In all of my past 15 surgeries, he never has done a procedure that wasn’t totally necessary. He doesn’t load me up with medications I don’t need or schedule multiple tests just to jack up the insurance company. I have an HMO for insurance, and they can be very hard to please and require lots of documentation before approving surgical procedures. There’s a boatload of surgeons out there whose only desire is to milk their patients for insurance money. This guy isn’t like that. He’s one of the best.

The CAT scan results show that the hardware that was used in February is stable and not moving, and my body is not rejecting it like it did with the hardware that was used in my surgery last November. Unfortunately, the scan also showed that the bone is NOT healing, and is NOT growing. My surgeon believes that I need to have ANOTHER bone graft. This would be surgery #16!!!!

He could tell that I was totally unprepared for this. He wants me to go see another surgeon, one he considers to be THE BEST in the field, and one who only takes “difficult” cases. They’ll schedule that appt in a couple weeks.

I explained to my surgeon that due to my son’s condition as well as all the other surgeries I’ve had that I have depleted my leave time and the time I had to miss work for last procedure was done with leave without pay. I’m just now getting current on my living expenses from that. I explained that there is no way that I can take more time off right now. As a single parent, I am the only person I can count on. I don’t have or want a sugar daddy. I want to rely on ME. I just need an opportunity to build up some leave time.

He acknowledged that and said that he first wanted me to see this other specialist, and then we can go from there. We may be able to wait until the fall to do this, which would be great. The risk is that the hardware will eventually loosen and my body will begin to reject it as well, causing the openings where the screws are in the bone to hollow out resulting in even more problems.

I’m really not handling this well right now. I went to work, and met with my boss. I broke down and started crying while explaining what was happening. She was so wonderful to me. She said that we would find a way to work it out. She could tell that I was in no way, shape or form, able to deal with my clients today. She gave me the day off and told me to go and take care of me today. I appreciated that so much. I needed to go home, and cry, and write about it in order to try to get my head around this.

I really thought that my days of surgery were finally over, and that I could begin to live my life again fully and not measured by the intervals between doctor appointments. I’m so bummed about this. I was NOT expecting to hear this.

There have been other times, when I have been in so much pain, and went to see him, well prepared to hear I needed another procedure done. The news then came almost as a relief to know that the suffering would end soon. I was ready to have the needed procedure done. This, however is totally a kick in the gut. I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in a long time. I expected good news. I didn’t expect to hear that I wasn’t healing and needed more surgery.

Ok, I know I’m rambling a bit here, and I apologize. I’m just trying to absorb and process this. I’m gonna try to stop crying, and do some mind numbing things around the house and goof off on the internet for the rest of the day. I could sure use a few hugs if ya’ll got any extra ones hanging around for someone who is having a “moment.”

I’ll be ok, I will. I have to be. I just need some time to be in shock.

Thanks for stopping by,

Curls