Surgery on my right hand involved dermo-fasciectomies on both the little and ring fingers. Having had a dermo-fasciectomy on the little finger of my left hand already, I was pretty comfortable with having two grafts this time. Knowing what to expect makes it easier but, it is complex surgery and things can go wrong.
One week on from surgery I met up with the physiotherapist who removed the comedy bandage. A week later I was back to see the consultant to check the grafts and take out any non-dissolving stiches. I had noticed when the physio was changing my dressings the previous week that I only had an incision under my little finger. Nothing in the palm leading up to the ring finger. Naturally this was something I wanted to quiz the consultant about.
The good news was that both grafts had taken and were healing nicely, as was the palm incision. The consultant was happy to explain that he’d been able to reach the affected tissue under the ring finger by pulling the flap of skin back from under the little finger. As he pointed out, this was one less complication and wound requiring healing. The same reasoning applies to his use of linear incisions rather than the traditional zig-zag cuts I’d see when researching Dupuytren’s surgery. It reminds me of the old management principle of Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) attributed to Kelly Johnson, a design engineer, in the 1960s. This approach has served me well over the years, so good to see it being applied in hand surgery.
Outcomes however are more important than processes. So, I was very pleased to se that both fingers are now pretty straight although the little finger currently still has a bit of a kink at the PIP joint. I’ll be writing more about the “pesky PIP joint” in the future! As you can see from the pictures, the result is a huge improvement on where I was and the wound healing looks better than it did at this stage on my left hand. The wound on my arm were the skin was taken for the grafts is also doing really well and healing nicely. As previously the arm incision is causing more discomfort than the fingers and I’ll have another week or two of itching to put up with no doubt.
The key thing now is to make sure I exercise my fingers regularly. I think I’ve got more feeling back in the fingers than I did after two weeks with the left hand, which is great. I’m already back to typing using all my fingers (just about) but its probably going to take a bit longer to get back to finger picking on the guitar.
