Second Time's the Charm!

Hi everybody,

Well, the surgery is over and done with and everything went really well. The original plan was to pull a tendon out of Chris's wrist and put it in his thumb. What happens when tendons usually rupture is that they fray which makes it hard to just re-attach them. When the doctor got in there and looked at Chris's tendon, that wasn't the case. There was scar tissue around it which kept it together pretty well. He cleaned it up and re-attached it. So...no need to go into his wrist! That was a releif to hear. There is only one small incision, and from the sounds of it, Chris should heal from this nicely! At first doctor was unsure as to when Chris's tendon ruptured. Apparently, with a trauma like this, it can happen weeks afterwards. The doctor said that from the looks of it, it definately happened when Chris had his accident. It looked like it had gotten mixed up in the damage there. When they did the surgery today, he had to file the bone down a little where Chris's tendon runs over the top of his wrist so that it would move smoothly over that bone. I'm sure that won't feel so good once all of the good drugs wear off... They did a "nerve block" where they basically completely numb his right arm. It lasts for 12 hours, and Chris is a BIG fan of this option after having it done in the hospital when he went though this before! He is feeling no pain. They did a local anesthetic on top of that. He spent most of the afternoon sleeping it all off. Now he is awake and looks to be feeling pretty good. This is so much less traumatic from the last time he had surgery. They have every hope that he will be ready to go back to work Monday. He may be a little slowed down in what he can do, but he should be feeling well enough. Thanks for all of the good wishes and prayers. We both REALLY appreciate it. We hope that this is the beginning of the end. Just physical therapy to go through for a while, and then Chris can get on with life as usual!