I found out yesterday that I need to have an ulnar-shortening osteotomy to deal with some wrist pain that is apparently caused by my ulna being too long. (Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad.) They’re going to cut out a centimeter of my ulna and then splice the fragments back using plates and screws :eek:.
I’m afraid. I’m very afraid. I have a sort of phobia about amputations, and this does involve removing part of my original body. You’d think they could just file it off at the end like a toenail :D.
On the brighter side, this surgery means there’s a chance I’ll be able to use my dominant right hand for something useful instead of letting it devolve into a gnarled claw good only for scaring the neighborhood kids.
I was assigned to the surgical wing during nursing clinicals and got to assist in a shoulder surgery, part of which involved hacking off a half an inch from the end of a patient’s collarbone.
I was pregnant at the time and, had it not been for that, I don’t think it would have been bad at all, but I damn near passed out. I think it was the cauterization that bothered me more than anything because of the smell but then the circulating nurse held the Bone in a Jar right up to my face like, “Hey, check this out!”
Sudden Kestrel, do you have a surgery date scheduled? I’d be scared too, but modern medicine does many things really well. And lots of checks and rechecks to make sure they are doing the right surgery, in the right place.
No surgery date yet. I have an MRI arthrogram week after next and then I’ll decide about the surgery. I figure if I get it done in November I’ll have the seven months of winter to recover before spring chores begin.
I’m very confident in my surgeon. He did his training at the One True Clinic here in MN and my surgery is at a facility owned by the OTC, so I know I’ll get great care. It’s just creeping me out to think that they’re taking the bone out of the middle and then mashing the leftover ends together and basically duct-taping them together. Urk.
What happens to the extra soft tissue in your arm surrounding the removed piece? Will you have a “doughnut” around your arm at first as the tissue readjusts?
I didn’t think to ask. I’ll ask him when I see him next week. He’s pretty cool, so he’ll probably like that question. I did wonder whether my hand would have a lateral bend, but apparently the wrist bones will settle back into the positions they would have held in a person without a freakishly elongated ulna.
to recover before spring chores begin.