Out of Commission

No, Not Art Commissions…

I have been out of commission over the past few weeks. It was all in preparation for a hand surgery I was scheduled to have last Thursday, which also happened to be my birthday. Not my idea of a fun birthday weekend, that’s for sure. But it was the only availablity for the surgeon that worked with my work schedule. The surgery was an outpatient procedure that took a couple of hours to repair the arthritis in my left thumb. Oddly the arthritis is in my non-dominant hand, but you won’t hear me complaining.

I was so busy trying to do all my heavy-duty chores before my surgery date. Wash the car, do a thorough house cleaning, trim the palm trees, cut the grass…you get the picture. I bought a back scrubber for the shower, strapless bras, floss picks for my teeth, and plastic bags to wrap my arm in when I shower. I also made sure to color my hair. Anything and everything I could think of, I tried to get out of the way before I’d have to navigate the world with one hand and potentially a lot of pain.

Cutting through bone just sounds excruciating, doesn’t it?

At this point, there was no feeling due to the nerve block.

Surgery day. Out of commission, day 1.

At any rate, my surgery date came and went without incident and the doc sent me home with instructions for keeping it clean, not driving with the pain meds, and what to do in case of infection. Having anticipated a lot of pain, they offered and I accepted a nerve block. The anesthesiologist warned me that it would feel like absolutely dead weight for up to ten hours.

As usual for me, it lasted about fourteen hours before I was able to move my fingers at all. During that time, I realized that my hand did not feel like it belonged to me. When I touched my numb hand, it felt like I was holding someone else’s hand. I also realized I could literally crank my fingers back and dislocate them all and wouldn’t feel a thing. It was very creepy.

When I started waking up in recovery, the nurse warned me that my throat would likely be sore from being intubated. It wasn’t at the time but I kept floating in and out of sleep. Then she offered to have my pain meds filled in the hospital so that I wouldn’t have to deal with going to my own pharmacy. I agreed and a few minutes later a white prescription bag…