June 16 - 20
The days between arriving home and surgery are a bit hazy. Dad was sleeping on my floor because I needed meds every 4 hours but I had to eat with the meds so Dad got up every four hours, got me some rice cakes and watermelon and woke me up. I would grumpily wake up, depending on what time it was, eat, swallow my pills and go back to sleep. I am so grateful for a daddy who loves his “girl with the golden hair”.
During the day, Matt was with me most of the time, often just sitting by my bed reading as I slept. It was so wonderful to have him there. I know I say that just about every other sentence but its because its true. I look back on this time more grateful and in love with him.
The search was on to find a surgeon. Mom and I have the same primary care and she was out of town so we couldn’t get her opinion. Dad’s primary was also out of town but because he goes to our church their relationship is a little bit more personal and they were able to reach him. He gave us the name of Dr Yeh and we (Mom, Dad, Matt and I) went to see him. We went through the x-ray shock process with every doctor. Each group of x-ray techs was as shocked to see my hand as the next. Dr Yeh thought he could do my surgery but he was going out of town (I guess it was vacation week time). So he recommended Dr. Dhabakula. We went to see him and did the same old routine. Both of these doctors mentioned things like “I’ve never seen that many fractures in one hand!” which made Mom a little uneasy as she didn’t want me to be a case study and I gotta say, I agreed. But we set up surgery for June 21st with Dr D.
Meanwhile, God had other plans. When Mom and Dad called their caregroup leaders to ask for prayer, it just so happened they were eating dinner with another couple (Mom and Dad actually had done their premarital years ago). This couple had a child born without fingers but through the amazing work of Dr. Seitz at the Cleveland Clinic their son now has three fingers and a thumb, all grown and created using his own tissues, tendons etc. Well, I did not want to go to Cleveland. I didn’t want to travel in the slightest. But Mom and Dad sent him my x-rays basically with the hopes he would look at them and possibly give a recommendation for someone down here. Well God did just that and therefore we got connected with Dr. Egleseder.
Dr E is awesome. First, he took time to call Mom and Dad from the literal OR to talk about my case. He told them about the seriousness of my injury but didn’t freak out about it. He works at University of Maryland Shock Trauma and so most of his patients are not walk-ins, they are often helicoptered in from the scene. He asked how we found him and when my parents mentioned Dr William Seitz, he said, “Oh you know Bill!?” haha it was so refreshing to have someone be calm about my case. He however could only say that maybe he could do surgery on Monday (the day scheduled with Dr D) and definitely not Tuesday but definitely Wednesday if Monday didn’t work.
Well I wanted surgery as soon as possible but at the same time I had learned Dr E’s reputation as one of the best (evidently he is in the top 3 of hand surgeons in the country). I asked Dad to please decide because I just didn’t feel I was in the right place to make such a big decision. Eventually we decided on Dr E whenever he could do it. We cancelled Dr D and waited. Monday didn’t work so surgery was scheduled for 7:00 am Wednesday.
I tend to be the kind of person that likes attention (not all the time but...) so Monday or so my hand had gotten to the point where it didn’t hurt as bad etc. I decided it couldn’t be as bad as the x-rays etc and it was probably just me trying to get attention. Because of this I didn’t want to go to surgery at all.
