Thursday 14 December 2006

Stu's Sore Finger - Fucking French Surgeon

Well, I went to go see the hand specialist today, Dr. Ian Hargrieves on Macquarie Street who is, so I'm told, the best hand and joint surgeon in Sydney and who, incidentally, reminded me a lot of my dad (big beard and glasses dad, if your reading).

He had a good look at the finger joint, and ordered a whole load of new x rays, but in the end, it only really confirmed all the bad news and predictions that I had been getting all along.


Basically, this is the rather grim situation.


Looking at the first x rays, he described the size of the pin used to initially fix the joint as 'out of all proportion', and 'like using a sledge hammer to fix a wrist watch'. I told him that the surgeon had told me he only had a huge one left, but stuck in in there any way (of course, only after the fucking operation). This apparently then probably interfered with the proper operation of the tendons, and this is not a good thing.


That said, the actual break has in fact actually healed pretty well. What
is a problem is what's been going on on the other side of the joint. I'm going to stick a copy of the x ray up so you can see, but basically, the originally healthy, uninjured side of the joint has just completely died and broken up - its totally fucked, there's bits of scattered and fragmented bone in it, and the end looks like a blank of wood snapped in half.

What he thinks has happened here is that the butcher, oh sorry, surgeon, has used a
blunt fucking drill to get the screw out. Because its so fucking blunt it causes excess heat, which then kills all the bone and blood supply system to the bone - aka thermonecrosis. He also thinks the dumb blind fuck may have also cut away the tendon from the bone, so he could see better what he was doing. Unfortunately, this has almost certainly killed this bit of the tendon.

And there's absolutely, positively no further medical options left open either, sadly. There are artificial joints 'but they're all rubbish' with a failure rate of about 40% in the first 3 years - which is certainly not going to do me any favours for the next 50 years of my expected life span.


So, thats it pretty much. In some ways I'm upset to learn that, in his words, 'I've never seen such a bad result from this kind of surgery' and that' if this was conducted in Australia it would certainly be a case of medical negligence'. Of course, it being done in France by a French surgeon, nothing will come of it.


Still, I think I can at last try to start moving forward past this - and before you say 'its just a little finger', you've got no idea what its like to lose the full use of your main hand - and thats what it is. It's been a small personal tragedy, and I don't think that is being melodramatic.


I'm grateful, at least, to finally know that it was just not my fault.


I guess it goes without saying, but take care of yourselves people - your body is the most wonderful, perfect and amazing machine and tool. Please don't ever forget that.

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