I spent last week in the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Being in hospital is never a fun time, it's just one of the necessary evils we all have to endure. I think the worst part for me was the hospital food, five days of overcooked tasteless mush *yuck*
I had my surgery on Tuesday. They removed a chunk of my hand and took a full thickness skin graft from my forearm to replace the bit that's gone. I'm told it seems to be healing well, although it looks awful to my untrained eyes.
I'll have an outpatient appointment soon to find out whether the margin was clear and what happens next. If it isn't clear I probably get more surgery and lose more hand, which I'd really prefer not to happen.
Because of the skin graft I had to keep my hand elevated so it was strapped into a sling hanging from a post even overnight. It meant I was forced to lay on my back which in turn meant I was worried about keeping the other inmates awake all night with my snoring so didn't sleep much at all. Am making up for that now that I'm home though.
I did get some really good news while I was in the hospital, the results of my CT Scan are normal - which means there are a few little nodules but nothing that looks cancerous. That was such a relief. I know it doesn't change anything in terms of how this will progress it's just where we're at now - but at least I'm still in with a chance of being cured and that means it's worth fighting for.
Anyway - can't type any more at the moment, have only got one hand and it gets a bit sore if i do too much. But if you don't mind squicky pictures there are some online at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmwcarol/tags/surgery/ showing how my hand was looking when the dressing was first changed last Friday
