Dupuytren's Part Two - the poppening

 Well, it is done. Kind of an ordeal, but it is done. Typing is a challenge. I have a splint on my right hand, and my pointer finger is the only one that works. I also keep hitting the return button on the keyboard so I am going to have to fix everything after I type it, or it will just drive me crazy to fix as I go. And of course my hand is so itchy now I can't stand it.

All day long, every time I looked at my hand, I thought of Dave Grohl in the "Everlong" Foo Fighters video.  

Always loved this song and video, but when Dave's hand grows and he starts smacking people with it, it cracks me up so much.  

I took these pictures at the house before we left. The bruising wasn't as bright as in other light. But you can see the swelling when looking at the back of my hand.  Knuckle-less.

I got in to the office and asked the nurse to take a picture of both hands for comparison. You can really see the bruises on my right hand, and the contracture is just starting on my left. We are not ready to treat the left hand as I mentioned yesterday. 

The doctor came in, he looked over my hand. He said this amount of bruising and swelling looks very as "expected and normal."

He shot my hand up with a buttload of Lidocaine, and we waited a minute. "Can you feel this? can you feel here? can you feel that?" he asked me as he prodded around my hand. Then he said "Okay, are you read ---" 

and before he finished saying ready, he snapped my fingers backward. 

I heard this crack like snapping a lobster claw with a shell cracker. It was loud and surprising. Not what I expected at all. I thought there would be a pop, not a crackle crunch.  

I started laughing maniacally. He smiled. It didn't even hurt. I was amazed.

He held my hand up and said "alright, we're done. Your fingers are straight."  

Well. They aren't all the way straight but hell if they aren't so much better than they were before. Wow.

Now, my palm. Well, the skin on my palm was ripped/lacerated by this manipulation. He knew that would happen. But it would not stop bleeding. 

We sat there, wrapped it, unwrapped it, wrapped it again. it kept bleeding. I asked him if maybe we should have stopped my blood thinners for a couple of days first. He said no. Better to have bleeding than my body throw a clot because of this. 

His assistant came in to splint my hand so my finger can get straightened out and be supported. 

The laceration is probably all set but I have to come back next week to have things looked at again because the split was pretty huge. I am supposed to keep the splint on for 2 weeks. But I am also at some point supposed to change the dressing on my palm. And I have to shower and stuff. I wasn't prepared for a splint and all. Hmm. Fun. 

Anyway, gotta figure out how to live for the next couple weeks like this, I guess. Good times. The pain right now isn't bad. The splint is probably the best thing, keeping everything still and protected. I had a couple of tramadol tablets from when I fell down the stairs a couple months ago, so I took one before bed and another at about 5am. He didn't write a script for me, but I may ask him to do that for 4-6 of them or something. We'll see how i do tonight and stuff.

I had been texting Linda before and after. She ended up making this meme of a picture of my hand (remembering the one from yesterday) that I sent her after the snap with the torn palm...(apologies for the laceration but this is funny). Digits below. 

digits

exercise: no walk today. worn out and sore.

blood glucose:
10am: 165
6pm: 178
9:30pm:146

food:
coffee, water
11am: bowl of chicken salad a la Doug: mayo, cranberries, walnuts, chicken breasts and grilled chicken thighs
11:30am: metformin
3pm: apple, pbj sammitch on 647 bread
6pm: metformin+jardiance
6:30pm: 2 bowls of mac and cheese with salsa and bacon. vodka and low sugar cranberry.
9pm: a couple forks of chicken salad