Home : Finger Injury Update

2020-06-07

Ok, now that it's a bit in the past I can talk a little more about that finger injury.

It wasn't a perfectly clean amputation; the doctor had to do some trimming to clean it up.

To do that the doctor used a familiar tool. I'm not sure what the medical term for it is, but I have one very similar.

I call it a "bolt cutter".

One of the nurses brings this in and says it's all they have. The doctor picks up this comically large pair of stainless steel bolt cutters and says it'll do.

Now I'm drugged up and have a nerve blocker so I can't feel anything. And I'm not watching the procedure. But I'm fully aware.

Several more nurses come in to observe. So there's three trauma ER nurses and the doctor. One of the nurses moves over a bit and suggests — with a quiet and nervous laugh — the others follow so they don't get hit by debris.

The doctor takes a snip and it sounds just like using bolt cutters on an actual bolt. There's a ping as a bit of bone strikes the wall and bounces around; just like cutting a bolt. The nurses are cringing, but I don't feel a thing. Quite a bit of blood is splurging around at this point, too.

A few more snips and some stitches and the doctor has it done. Over the next hour we have some issues with bleeding but the doctor eventually gets it stopped and all is well.

A month on and the healing is going well.

During a visit this week we discovered a bit of stitching that got left in. The nurse pulled several inches of it out but the pain was a bit intense so he stopped to consult with the doctor.

The doctor came in to check it out and said he thought the healing is going well and we'll leave the stitch in until it heals a bit more. I'll need at least one more surgical procedure to remove the nail matrix on that finger; there's just enough left to grow a little bit of finger nail which is causing some problems and isn't useful. And we can remove the rest of the stitch at that time.