A 4-day trip to the unknown

Pigpen's post-op update

I've been gone for four days and I'm not sure where I went.

The best shoulder and hand doctor in Tucson, and probably in the Southwest, pounded away at a bone in my left arm on Tuesday, removed some crud from my left thumb and then moved a tendon, or parts there of, to the empty space at my thumb joint.

I'm not a doctor, but I think that is what happened.

There was a curtain between the rest of my body and my arm...my glove hand, if you will, and I thought I heard the doctor say, "this is a stubborn sucker."

I assume he was talking about the tendon, or the bone, and not about me. Who knows? I have been pretty much mush since I left the operating table with what was left of a block in the now injured arm and enough oxycodone to create some new friends for the next three days.

Yes, I had some...I mean a lot, of side effects. I tried to do things like turn the spare bedroom into a replica of the living room. I did not succeed, but I tried. I saw my arm floating around the room more than once.

What I thought would be a six-week recovery, may keep me off the baseball field for nine months. Plenty of time to have a baby. Well, I might be stretching it a bit, but the after effects of all the above felt like something similar. It was definitely a trip to the unknown.

Photo: That's me...currently a one-armed bandit.

Note: Update 1/31/18 -- Had the stitches (12 to 14, I think) removed today and now I have a thumb brace on. Report back to the surgeon on March 14. Operation a success so far. I thought originally the doctor needed to break a tendon to get the job done, but he needed to break a bone to get to the tendon and then move the tendon to the thumb joint. There's a screw (the fall-off kind) inserted somewhere. Anyway, glad that part is over. Depending on what the doctor says on March 14, there's a chance I might get back to playing ball by the summer.