They Don't Call us Patients for Nothing

Big day today... I arrived at the hospital in Toronto at 11AM this morning, registered and headed up to the Hand Clinic - where they promptly told me to go away until my appointment at 1PM! Anyway, I managed to derail that notion since I knew they wanted some X-Rays and figured I'd have to chill in radiology for a while anyway (... and I did.)

Incidentally, while we were doing the paperwork, I saw the letter Dr. L had sent, saying he'd "exhausted all possible treatments" and "(due to my) young age and extreme persistence for treatment" that Dr. vS should scope it. I won't hide my disdain for Dr. L, but I think that assertion was rather... overstated? Belligerent? Although saying anything to get on the wait list is fine by me at this point.

The wait in radiology's was an hour, then I was back up to the clinic, where I was seen by a resident immediately. He didn't say much except to express how baffling it was for me to have sustained such an injury at low speed (ie: not while skiing or motocross) - "you must be very strong" ... sure. He drew a few lines on the films, checked my grip strength, palpated and manipulated both my hands.

Dr. vS waltzed in, polite, confident, quick. Did some more manipulation and palpation while the resident droned on... the only thing I caught was "oh yeah, there's the DC" (??) and ulnar-side pain. And he did something really weird to pop my whole wrist that I'd never felt before and hope to never again. He highlighted the grip numbers and the wide difference.

Then he delivered the findings, and I quote:
"Well of the 3 kinds of scapholunate damage you can have, you've got the least bad. It's still really bad, but it's the easiest to fix." (best news ever?) (Merry Christmas?)

He then postulated if we had an MR we'd probably see volar damage to the scapholunate ligament... so I gave him the most recent MRI report (which reads "Evidence of injury to the volar and membranous components...") and I let him have his little victory lap

At that point he was set on performing an arthroscopy and plication repair of the ligament.

Just like that. ("Unfortunately you're going to have to do a lot of commuting.")


Other commentary:
- "80% chance of making it 80% better"
- "and if we don't make it any better, at least you'll finally have a diagnosis - for whatever that's worth." "and you've been waiting long enough"
- 6 weeks (!) in a cast then 6 more weeks (!!) in a splint

And just like that, the man of the hour was gone.

For the next half hour, the resident and I tediously went through all the paperwork and surgical checklists... but every now and then another resident would come in to look at my films, and then manipulate my hand... I asked why so many people were doing this and it turns out that word spreads fast in the ward when there's an interesting (who knew!) case on deck and they all wanted to see. Amusing, flattering and degrading all at the same time

The resident's tongue finally loosened, he said while it's a very rare injury, they deal with it all the time there and Dr. vS's success rate is VERY good and I have nothing to worry about.

Surgery is so soon! (January 23rd!)
My father will be retired by then so he can chauffeur me back to Ottawa the day after while I'm all coked up on whatever they give me. Or at least, that's my plan as of now...

It is hard to believe I'm going to be completely without my left hand (again) for almost 3 months, but as one of my friends said "Hey, at least there's a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel now." So true.

My business partner was less supportive: "huh, so I guess you weren't faking it."

Jerk.

Anyway - if I'm going to TRY skiing this winter, we'd better get some snow, and I'd better hit the slopes hard all before I lose what little function I have...