I'm finally free!!!!!!!

After 6 lllllloooooonnnnnnngggggg weeks, I am finally cast free!  I would be doing a happy dance (a la Snoopy) but my hand is so sore that yesterday I actually wished it was back on!  In the 39 years of my existence, this was the first cast I've ever had.  TGIM has had 2 on his leg since we've been married but he had a completely different experience.  He went from a cast to a walking boot and 6 weeks of physical therapy while wearing the boot, so he never had that stiffness from lack of use.  Plus, he scored a really cool Gor-Tex lining so he could get his cast wet..... no nasty, scaly skin for him!  You can be glad that I didn't take pictures of what my thumb looked like immediately after it came off.  GROSS!!!!!!

I thought I'd share my different casts with you.

 Here's what I woke up from the surgery with.  As you can see, my thumb was well protected and my fingers were pretty much useless.  It was ok though because whenever I tried to use my hand, moving my fingers pulled on the incision and really made it hurt.  Heck, my thumb just plain hurt.  It hurt like they sawed the 2 ends of the bones and wired them together.  Wait!  That is what they did.  LOL!

 After 2 weeks, I got the big bulky cast off and got this little, "cute" one, which I wore for 34 days (not that I counted every single one of them).  I kid you not, people everywhere told me that it was the cutest little cast they had ever seen.  At least with this one, I had the use of my fingers.  You should have seen me chopping and trying to cook.  It was funny and didn't happen often.  I'm so very glad I did all that precooking.  It was needed!  And while I thought I did great, I made one major mistake.  I made a bunch of things that needed bread items, tortillas, buns etc.  I didn't think to make those and freeze them.  So, we had to eat store bought baked goods.  Next time I'll know.  Not that there should be a next time!

And finally, here is my brand new thumb!  It's extremely stiff and sore (but not swollen, that's how it's going to look forever now) but the surgery was a complete success!  The bones have fused nicely and there is no pain in the actual joint.  There still is a little dead skin but it's 1000000 times better than when the cast came off. 

Very soon, I'll share with you some new goodies and recipes.  I had googled "skin care after cast removal" and it said to soak and gently exfoliate and then use fragrance free lotion.  Conveniently, I had just ordered (and it arrived 2 days before) some supplies to make my own hand cream.  It's super easy and cheap!  So maybe next week, when my hand is stronger I'll show you how to do it.  Silly me, I thought that my cast would come off and I'd be ready to go.  Shows you how much I didn't know!