Moral of the story first. BE CAREFUL when putting trash bag into dumpster, as sharp things can go through plastic. End of August 2010. It is Tuesday, trash day and the thing is full. We are supposed to toss our bags towards the back so that this does not happen, but alas, I cannot get my bag in, so I put my left hand on it and push. That was it. Sharp pain. Yank the hand back, blood dripping. Wow that hurts. I see the wound on my finger by the 2nd knuckle. It feels like there is another wound at the tip of the finger but I cannot see one. I get the door shut and leave a red trail to my house. There must be a piece of glass in there.
I try a few times to get said glass out. Only more bleeding and no success. So I clean and bandage it and try a couple more times later. After a few days I decide that a doctor may be able to do this. So I go to Urgent Care. He says go to a specialist and he calls and they can take me right now. So off we go.
Dr. says yes there may be glass in there, or not. It feels like it to him. He says the sensation in the tip of my finger indicates there might be nerve damage. He suggests surgery to remove glass and possibly wrap the nerve so that it grows back properly. It is expensive, I complain. He says everything is expensive. Don't remember if I whined about my catastrophic health insurance, but ultimately I decide if I don't have him try to take it out, it will bother me and I will always be thinking there is glass in there and why didn't I have it taken out (and what if it moves around and .....say CUTS the nerve or other creepy things? Surgery is scheduled for next week.
Oh by the way, you have to go under for this and you have to have a check up with your own doctor to see that it's ok to put you under. What? Now I'm really whining. Why can't you just numb my hand and let me watch?
He says the nerve is the size of a hair and the surgery is done with a microscope and you cannot move. So we are set.
While waiting, I keep thinking, hey, people jerk and move while they are asleep, I still am not sure I need to go under. Why can't they just clamp my arm and hand down and I won't watch. Surgery is early in the morning, so I ask to discuss this with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist one last time before they knock me out.
They come in and I tell them my concerns. It isn't that I'm afraid of going under, it's the expense. He assures me that there will be better results if you are out. The anesthesiologist says you are way more still that when you are just asleep. You are so far out that they have to put a breathing tube in to make you breathe. Oh great, they have to kind of almost kill me and then keep me alive artificially. Wonderful.
OK I understand and I agree.
I wake up. They tell me the doctor has come and spoken with me but I do not remember seeing him. They say this is normal, amnesia. My friend Howard has picked me up and taken me home. I take a nap. I have a long list of things to do and not do after surgery, such as keep your wound above your heart and don't get the bandage wet. They do not say do not use your hand. There is a thick white gauze wrapped around and around the palm of my hand. As my mind clears and I am looking at the bandage, it dawns on me, HEY there is no indication that he went into my finger where the wound is. He went in somewhere below the base of my finger or my palm. HUH? Something is wrong here. OK, give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe in this type of nerve surgery, they go in at the base of the finger and follow the nerve up to the wound under the skin.
See, I just can't believe the doctor has made a mistake so my mind is working on why the surgery was not done at the wound site (which had healed up on the surface during the week).
I call the secretary and ask to talk to the doctor. She says he's busy and cannot call you today. I say I do not see any indication that he went in where the glass was. I think out loud at her: maybe they go in at the base of the finger....etc. She says you are just confused and trying to figure out how the doctor did the surgery. The doctor knows what he is doing. He has 12 surgeries today and he cannot call you. She has thoroughly dissed me.
I say (politely) I will wait until all his surgeries are finished, but I need him to call me today, because I am going to Seattle this weekend and if this has to be done over again it needs to be right away so that I can be done with this before I leave.
He calls and I tell him what I see. He says can you come in tomorrow morning? Yes, so I show him at his office. I say here is the wound and I point to my finger and you went in down here in my hand. What happened?
He says I screwed up. He says I am going to make this right and I will do it tomorrow any time you want and will not charge you for either of my surgeries and only one hospital charge.
OK, I am relieved that he has owned his mistake and I agree.
But if I were he, I would pay for every single expense I had in relation to this surgery.
So in the end he redid the surgery. No glass but a badly damaged nerve was found, which he wrapped and then I went to Seattle. My son-in-law talked me into taking out my stitches.
