So, it all started on Aug. 1st. My hand began to hurt from what I thought was working out to hard the previous day. I was supposed to work an overtime shift that night, but only made it through 3 and a half hours before deciding the pain warranted a late night visit to the ER. The doctor told me exactly what I wanted to hear, and sent me home with a sprained wrist and some pain meds. After a week and no relief in pain, I began to fear the worst. I think the scariest thing was when one of my co-workers told me he thought it was infected, and i knew he was right. So i decided to visit the ER again that next morning.

This is what my wrist looked like at that time.

By that afternoon, Tiffany was home from work and Mackenzie was happily settled in at Grandma's house. We arrived at Regional Hospital at around 3pm with the impression that we would be seen and shortly there after, sent on our way with some meds. To our surprise, that would not be the case. We knew this as soon as the ER doctor saw my hand. He knew right away that there was a serious infection and that the fluid needed to be drained immediately. At which point he administered a small amount of local anesthetic to the area he planned to use a syringe to drain and relieve some of the pressure. And why wait for these things to work? So the doctor jammed a 10 gauge needle into the most sensitive area on my whole arm. He removed about 3 to 4ml of fluid before he decided that this plan was not sufficient. The doctor turned, grabbed a scalpel and made his cut before anyone had a chance to blink. I'll spare you the rest of the grusome details of how the extracation of more fluid was accomplished. After this traumatizing experience was over, this dr. felt the incision should be packed. And with the grace of a rinosaursous, he packed the wound.

At this point the dr. felt that it was best if the on-call orthopedic surgon came to check the situation out. In walked Dr. Griffiths. What a peach. Let me just say that this man left me with so little confidence that I wanted to ask for cradentials or some form of proof of his qualifications. Dr. Griffiths decided that he needed to make sure that the infection wasn't in the joint. To do this a nurse provided this lovely machine that took x-rays of some sort while the dr. stabbed me yet again with a 10 gauge needle. This needle got a better view of my insides than the first. This one got to go all the way to the tiny spaces between all 8 bones in my wrist joint. After the first jab from this oh so special dr., I decided that it was time to get some actuall pain meds in the pretty I.V. line that they hooked up. After a single moment of relief, the dr. was back at work whith the needle. He wasn't convinced that the joint was uninfected so he decided that we needed to do emergency surgery. The surgery started at 9pm that night. It lasted for about 2 and 1/2 hours. The team opened the first slice farther to total about 4 inches. This allowed the dr. to remove any infection, clean the sight, insert another needle into the joint and add a drain. During the surgery, the dr. found there to be infection in the joint which led him to worry about infecion in the bone. After the sugery, I was admitted into what would be my personal hell.

The dr. let Tiff know that they would be doing another surgery the next day at noon to check the progress of the infection. Like devoted fans of a rockband, Tiff and Kenz where at my bedside keeping me sane. The second sugery was much shorter. It lasted only about 45min. Then it was back to my shared hospital room. During the second surgery the dr. cleaned the wound, added a different drain and sutures. After a day and a half of waiting, the dr. came back to check on me. The not so gingerly opend the wrapping on my wrist and hand and yanked out the drain. I bet you could guess it felt wonderful. That day, I was sent to have an M.R.I. to see if the infection was in my bones. While we waited for those test results, we recieved good news that the staff infection was infact, not MRSA. During this time, Dr. Griffiths contacted the infection specialist Dr. Berg. He wanted a second opinion on how to proceed with meds. Up until this point, I was on I.V. antibiotics, antiinflamatorys and pain meds. Dr. Berg was to come for a visit and assess the situation. About that time the results from the M.R.I. came in. The results were not clear as to how severe the infection was in the bone. It had appeared to the raidologist that the infection was just starting.

And after all this information, testing and surgeries, we got to play the waiting game. There is nothing like a wait in a hospital when you have wonderful roomies like roomie #3. He couldn't even get out of bed to use the bathroom. Yup. To make a long story short. I was able to be discharged because I annoyed the nurses with the call light every 15min. til the hospital director Julie came to visit. I explained that both the doctors were not working hard to get me out, but thretening to keep me for up to 6 weeks to treat the bone infection with I.V. meds that can be administered at home or by coming in once or twice a day. Julie was wonderful and helpful. She even moved me to a private room with couch and kitchenette. But all I wanted was to be home with my girls. So after Julie made a quick phone call to each of the doctors, they magically apeared. They decided that I could go home with a treatment of oral antibiotics three times a day for six weeks and a few checkups.

I had my first check up Wednesday the 21st. Almost a full week since I was released from my 5 day stay at the hospital. The dr. removed my stiches and wrapping. They replaced the heavy wrapping with a removeable hand brace. A side effect of this long time infecton (almost 3 1/2 weeks since it all began) is the attrophy. I will be at the P.T. a couple times a week to regain function of my wrist, hand and fingers. The trouble is not over yet though. I still have to see the dr. regularly to check the progress of any remaining infection that might be trying to hang on. But I'm back to work on light duty, and comming home every night to my wife and daughter.