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Sitting in the emergency room right now (Yet another update with more pics!)

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Cattykit said:
Would've been hilarious if the cat ate your finger and you had to cut him open to get it back.
Click to expand...

Not really. Besides, this is a cat I've had since it was born. Here's a picture I have when he was just born with the rest of the litter.

IMG_0806.jpg


Here is a little more recent photo I had without having to take a picture at the moment. The one who likes to jump on my shoulders is on the left.

IMAG0019.jpg
 
This morning I had the appointment with the hand surgeon at 8am. Worst part was that he was on the other side of town and takes about 45 minutes to get there with no traffic and an hour and a half with traffic. So to make sure I made it there I left at 6:25am this morning. which is about 5 minutes before the heavy traffic starts. Rather be there 45 minutes early than late.

So I get there and wait about 15 minutes and the doctor is there early. However, we have to wait on his office people and nurses to show before he can get to me. They don't all get there until 15 minutes after. Ugh. Then I have to fill out paperwork and finally get seen by 9am. Before the doctor can do anything, we have to remove the bandage I got in the ER. Since I've been bleeding with the bandage, removing it became a long and tricky process even after I got some mandecaine shots in the finger to block the pain.

IMAG0057.jpg


As you can see from this image, there was a ton of gauze that was soaked and hardened with blood. It was like removing a cast. I was given a dish filled with peroxide to let the layers soak and to loosen the blood so I could peel away the layers of gauze. Cutting wasn't much of an option with the way it was and it could have hurt me further.

Finally after about 20 minutes I am almost there.

IMAG0058.jpg


That yellow bit is suppose to be the non-sticking dressing applied directly to the wound. It lived up to its name and did not stick to the wound. However, the stupid thing slid off to the side after it had been wrapped up and then the regular gauze WAS stuck directly on to the wound. While I wasn't feeling much pain, we didn't want to injure the finger further so it was a tedious process to soak that gauze to get it soft enough to peel away from the wound without further aggravation to it. Finally we had success!!! The following pictures I will give as links. They are not for the faint of heart.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd247/viscar/IMAG0059.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd247/viscar/IMAG0060.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd247/viscar/IMAG0061.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd247/viscar/IMAG0062-1.jpg


Unfortunately, it took way too much time to remove that dressing from the ER and the doctor did not have time to perform any skin graft surgery. So the wound got cleaned and redressed with something that will come off easier when it is needed to. I'm scheduled for a skin graft on Thursday afternoon. I've got more hydrocodone to pop until then.
 
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Looks painful as hell, but not nearly as bad as was suggested in the original post. Give that 6 months or so and you'll hardly notice it.

🙄
 
BoomerD said:
Looks painful as hell, but not nearly as bad as was suggested in the original post. Give that 6 months or so and you'll hardly notice it.

🙄
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Lol, I never said I cut off the knuckle, just the end of my finger by the last knuckle. No other way to describe it, but people will interpret what they will. Besides the original pic shows the lump of my finger there. Oh well. And yah, it was painful.
 
HumblePie said:
Lol, I never said I cut off the knuckle, just the end of my finger by the last knuckle. No other way to describe it, but people will interpret what they will. Besides the original pic shows the lump of my finger there. Oh well. And yah, it was painful.
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In my youth, I worked in a factory making farm equipment and boat trailers. I ran a cut-off saw that, if the blade wasn't changed before it got dull, would leave a 1/2" burr along the cut. I grabbed one of those burred pieces to put it in the pile, and since it and my gloves were oily, it slipped out of my hand...but the burr managed to take nearly all of the thumb pad with it.

No skin grafts, no surgery, but now, some 38 years later, other than being a bit thinner than the other thumb, you can't tell. The skin grew back, most of the "meat" grew back, and the thumbprint grew back.
 
BoomerD said:
In my youth, I worked in a factory making farm equipment and boat trailers. I ran a cut-off saw that, if the blade wasn't changed before it got dull, would leave a 1/2" burr along the cut. I grabbed one of those burred pieces to put it in the pile, and since it and my gloves were oily, it slipped out of my hand...but the burr managed to take nearly all of the thumb pad with it.

No skin grafts, no surgery, but now, some 38 years later, other than being a bit thinner than the other thumb, you can't tell. The skin grew back, most of the "meat" grew back, and the thumbprint grew back.
Click to expand...

Yah, that's what they told me. I could wait 6 months for it to all grow back, or I could get a skin graft and give it about 4 weeks to completely heal. I chose to do the 4 weeks.
 
BoomerD said:
In my youth, I worked in a factory making farm equipment and boat trailers. I ran a cut-off saw that, if the blade wasn't changed before it got dull, would leave a 1/2" burr along the cut. I grabbed one of those burred pieces to put it in the pile, and since it and my gloves were oily, it slipped out of my hand...but the burr managed to take nearly all of the thumb pad with it.

No skin grafts, no surgery, but now, some 38 years later, other than being a bit thinner than the other thumb, you can't tell. The skin grew back, most of the "meat" grew back, and the thumbprint grew back.
Click to expand...

The thumbprint - isn't that amazing. I've had a few wounds where I figured I just removed a fingerprint permanently. A couple months later, it was back.
 
what kind of sammich were you making that required you to use a super sharp knife?

this is a great cross section for a biology class.
 
Dude....awesome pics. You can see the meat and stuff. Also, gross, but awesome too.
 
Ah, I see about one of those a month. Usually meat slicers or mandolins. The piece that was removed was not viable and could not be reattached even if they had it to sew on it would only die anyway. Often cellulose gel is applied to the wound to limit bleeding then the vaseline gauze that you had to prevent sticking. Finally a white gauze to cover, often a tube of gauze.
As you discovered this is often very painfull and bleeds profusely.

Good luck.
 
I had a similar injury about 20 years ago - tip of my index finger was cut off. Quick thinking coworkers grabbed the fingertip (all flesh, no bone) and put it on ice immediately. Plastic surgeon sewed it on about 2 hours later (being calm in an ER apparently means your finger-in-a-cup is less important than skinned knees).

It's never healed up really right; I still have a flat, dead-feeling fingertip. It's like it's all callous, from the point it was sewn back on.

Your cut took off more flesh, and at a greater angle than mine (mine was at about a 45 to the axis and took off perhaps 3/16" thickness of flesh, less than a dime's diameter). If my experience is anything, I don't think your recovery will be as rosy as Boomer's was.

Then again, maybe you'll heal up better than I did. Best of luck.
 
Harsh. Hang in there brudda, you have a rough patch ahead. Hope all goes well with the surgery and recovery.
 
Ouch, not quite what I envisioned but bad just the same. You got an iron stomach for being able focus and snap the photos. I do first aid at work and I know I'm bound to deal with something similar some day.
 
Ho-lee-shit. That is sick and the wound is shockingly symmetric (duh, knife).

Good luck with that shit...
 
You could have done the skin graft yourself. Just take the chunk of skin you cut off and stick it back into place. Wrap a couple band-aids around it and your done. You would have saved a lot of time and money.
 
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