Surgery tomorrow

For any of you unfamiliar with my hand problems I'll give you a quick history....

It all began late one night in the summer of 2006. I just got home from work and I had a bunch of things I needed to take upstairs from my car and I new it would take several trips. I opened the door and was greeted by the usual craziness that ensues every time I get home from work. (see our post "happy to be inside" in our January archives). Wanting to get this stuff hauled in, I gave each of the kids a quick pat on the head (they normally won't let me get away with giving them such a little amount of attention) and carried the first load up stairs. As I hurried back down the stairs Kailee ran down right behind me and slammed right into the back of my legs. She took my feet right out from under me and I landed awkwardly on my hand.
I knew it was broken right away because I heard the bones crunch. I've never heard the sound of them breaking when I've broken bones before, it was creepy.

We hopped in the car and headed to the hospital. The pain was pretty intense and I passed out on the way. It was kind of funny to wake up to Melissa slapping me and yelling "Eric! Eric! Eric! I guess it was the first time she had seen someone faint so it freaked her out.

They referred me to a surgeon and he put the bones back together with 6 screws.
As time went on it was becoming clear that my hand wasn't set right. My fingers started to close over on each other when I would close my hand. Apparently if those bones aren't set just right when they're broken it really effects the way your fingers close.

I went to see a different specialist who recommended breaking one of the bones and rotating it to make them line up better. When he started to remove the screws he was able to pluck 5 out of the 6 by just using tweezers! The previous surgeon did a terrible job. Any way he broke the bone and put in the plates and pins that you can see in the picture. He had to do bone graphs on the bone to the right of the one that has the plates to fill in where some of the loose screws were.

My hand still doesn't close the same as it used to but it has been a big improvement. I have had a lot of pain lately and they think the plates are causing some irritation so tomorrow those will be coming out. I'll have Melissa post an update tomorrow afternoon. -Eric