In Feb, I had a small cut while trimming one of the plants in the front of the house.  The cut was small but right on the knuckle of my left ring finger; there was a little bit of bleeding and I recalled finishing up trimming before coming back inside the house.  Few days later, the area was more swollen and painful, thus I finally reached out to the doctor.  I was given an antibiotic and a referral to a hand surgeon.  After showing my finger to the hand surgeon on a video, he immediately advised that I did not have an infection but I cut a tendon on the finger.  It totally caught me by surprise and I was extremely shaken up by the need for surgery and the 4 weeks needed for recovery.

   Since the timing was sensitive and I had already wasted time before reaching out, the surgery was quickly scheduled on 3/3/2021 in the late afternoon.  I had to take an xray, do a COVID test, quickly finished work and briefly trained a pharmacist to cover me in those last two work days.  On that Wed, I fasted all day, Stuart dropped me off and I waited extra time for the surgeon to start the surgery, but all went well especially since I was out during the procedure.  I then woke up with my left hand / arm all wrapped up, and soon they contacted Stuart to come pick up the prescriptions and me.

   Other than waking up with intense and almost not bearable pain on the first night, the pain has been relatively manageable by the pain meds, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Tramadol and gabapentin, the past weeks.  This is however a month that I have taken the most pain meds ever.  Besides the pain, the first week and a half was tough; I felt tired, headachy at times, being anxious and uncomfortable having the arm wrapped.  At the first follow up appt on 3/18, I was looking forward to have the wrap, stitches and one of the 3 long pins removed.  I also met with an OT who made me a removable splint.  I was so happy to have 2 more fingers free and I no longer felt the anxiety beginning wrapped. I was told to begin some home exercises for all the non injured fingers periodically.

   Yesterday during 2nd appt, as expected the surgeon removed the remaining 2 pins from that finger and the wound can finally close soon.  I was nervous until the surgeon reassured me that the repair has been successful as I was able to bend the ring finger slightly on demand.  I was also pleasantly surprised by the OT making me a finger splint thus my hand is now free too.  I was told that I no longer have to keep the hand elevated as much now; it was a very strange and pleasant feeling to let the arm hang freely by my side for the first time in 1 month.

   This household has been going smoothly this month as Stuart has stepped up to do most of everything.  He goes grocery shopping with me, he assists me in making dinners and he does all the chaperones as needed.  Logan and Connor have also helped often when I could not do with one hand; in addition Logan was diligent in reminding me to elevate my arm when I got lazy.  All three of them just could not look at my hand or hear me talk about what had been done to my hand.

   Now the finger is still sore sometimes and I have to slowly exercise the joints on that finger to bend 10 degrees this week, but I am happy with the progress.  I am learning to type with 8 fingers now to prepare to return to work next week.  Beside this crazy journey of injury and repair, I have started to enjoy being at home the 2nd two weeks; I enjoy spending time with the family even though they have school and work, catching up on Continued Education studying, enjoy watching TV with Buddy, and doing a couple small projects.  It is time to return to the work force next week.

   We needed a physical assessment form filled out for school, and the doctor wanted to see Logan first.  Because of the pandemic, it had been almost two years since Logan was seen.  According to Stuart, the doctor was very thorough; she reviewed everything carefully and no major issues found.  Logan was due for the HPV vaccine and needs to have fasting labs done one day.  All and all, the mission for this visit was accomplished.

I believe the vitals for this 2021 visit were 5’3” and 99 lbs.

     We thought that it was time for Buddy to have more interaction with other doggies plus we would like to find out his current weight, thus we took Buddy in for half day on 3/23.  The boys are very protective of Buddy; they were nervous to have him away from us and worried that he would get hurt there.  They could not even watch the live doggie cam when I showed them. 

    Buddy seemed to have done well there and had fun.  In the live cam, we saw that he was playing with other doggies and did not look aggressive or overly excited.  The staff checked his weight and it was 109.6lbs; thus he had gained a bit more again.  He was definitely one of the largest one there on that day. 

     Logan is learning to do jump rope during this segment of P.E.  Logan truly did not know how to do it at all and was actually somewhat intimated by it.  But he tries his best and here are his results.

In progress:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WPk6QPwL5w

Now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk9apeEIu4Y