A Slice of Luck!

OK. Been for a cracking surprise holiday thanks to my other half Sabrina. The sojourn was in celebration of the fact that I've 'survived'  two consecutive cancer scares! Well done, time to crack on some might say?

Well.....

We all know the rule about always drawing a knife away from your body, yeah? How many times have you forgotten this and pulled the blade towards your body? In my case I very rarely do this, except on Wednesday at 6pm when cleaning up some miniatures I broke the golden rule and payed the price big time, slicing deeply into my left thumb down to the bone. Ouch indeed! So, I cupped my hands quickly moved like lightening to the bathroom to avoid staining the carpets (I know!) whilst shouting for Saby to bring a bandage upstairs so I could stop the bleeding that rapidly filled my hands and overflowed into the basin! This she did with a tea towel! With the potential risk infection from the tea towel I, having realised that I had happily missed the vein and although the cut was very deep, it wasn't going to make me pass out like a big girls blouse!

A&E then. I was very surprised to hear the practise nurse tell me that she had made an appointment for me at the Durham Plastics Department at the University Hospital as she was worried that I may have cut into the nerve and also the tendons! It quickly dawned on me that in my line of work this could spell doom as I could lose the dexterity of my left hand! A sort of panic set in......

Pic of the original dressing and one worried looking self.

Next day started early with what I assumed would be a long day. It was........ I got to the hospital at 8am and was still there waiting for surgery at 5:30pm. Luckily the excellent staff in the Short Stay Surgical Department had opened up another theatre as my wound was considered to still be an 'open wound' and the possibility of infection of the tendons was high. Now, bearing in mind that I've had two major cancer scares I'm not a fan of hospitals at all and as the day went on my anxiety grew, especially when they finally called my name out! To be fair the surgeons were great, after a local anaesthetic, they checked for nerve damage; none was there though I did miss the anterior interosseous branch of the median nerve by 1mm!!!!! If the cut had been 1mm in one direction I would have lost any meaningful dexterity in my left hand and possibly the use of my thumb! One very lucky lad really. It was then a general cleaning of the wound to make sure that the tendons were sterile etc and they bandaged me up and popped me into recovery!

Oldish nurse excellent 'moring' dressing.

Souvenir

Post op dressing

An interesting couple of days if you're into thumbs(?) but perhaps more importantly (and upsetting) I have been ordered not to use my left hand for eleven days and that it why you will find this article has been cut and pasted on all my blogs :O)

Darrell.