This could take awhile....

Only typing with one finger at a time......

Surgery turned out to be more invasive than first thought, what was suppose to be one ruptured tendon, ended up being four tendons needing repairing..... the plate and screws got removed thankfully, though that was also a mission. The surgery ended up taking double the time it was meant too..... basically he fixed up my previous surgery mistake.

First photo in hospital, they couldn't get the pain under control, so was having morphine like it was candy, after a few hours, I was settled enough to go up to a ward, and ended up staying the night with a morphine pump. 
Second photo is the plate and screws that did all the damage..... basically once they opened me up, it was a bloody mess in the hand..... so did tendon grafts as well as repairs.

At home the following day, and feeling a bit better after a shower.....

Friday, I had a hand therapist appointment, where she took the back slab off, and put a  splint on. I have to wear it 24/7 for the first 6 - 8 weeks, and in a sling, when not resting it on a pillow, and then nights only for 6 - 8 weeks. Have some very small hand exercises to do every hour, and not allowed to use the hand for anything else. I am not going to lie it hurts so much.......

Making the splint....

The extension on the fingers, needs to be worn at night, so the fingers are straight, when I sleep.

 This is the hand before the splint was made and after surgery..... It ended up being a scar on the top of my hand, where the tendons were weak and needed repairs. Originally it was only suppose to be a small cut just above the index finger, where they did the tendon transfer, and underneath in the original scar where they placed the pins and screws 8 years ago.  

I am pissed cause this could have all been avoided, had the surgeon, not mucked up my previous surgery.... 8 years ago. But I need to move forward and all going well in about 12 weeks time, it will all be healed and hopefully better than before. 

Thats it for now, it has taken me forever to finish this post....

Back on track.... and 1 week today.

Being back on track and feeling so much better, the scales are coming down thank bloody god...... Hopefully this will be the last time I lose and gain, hopefully this time will be just to lose...

Went to my anaesthetist  pre-op appointment, all went well, so surgery is all going ahead for the 23rd July. I am being optimistic about the surgery and really feeling confident, this surgery will turn my life around. I am looking forward to going back to the gym, as well as the getting the nail business up and going again. It is an afternoon surgery and need to be there at 12.30pm, and all going to plan will be hone that night.

This post was started last Saturday, so thought I would try and finish it now, before another few days go by. This week is busy trying to fit in my regulars with nails before surgery. I am hoping only to take 2-3 weeks of max, but that could easily change. I am not allowed to drive for 6 weeks :(, but the good thing is when I am recovered, it will be Spring yay......

I am hoping the surgery will remove a lot if not all of the pain, and I can drive further and start going out and doing more things, and with the warmer weather heading our way the beach will be a regular thing..... 

Anyway at this stage, dont really have a lot more to say - trying to stay relaxed and keep that Blood pressure down. See you in a few days.

Refocus....

Time to refocus, and get myself back on track..... nothing is going to bring Chico Chops back now and I have surgery in just under 2 weeks and have the anaesthetist appointment on Friday (Tomorrow), I know my blood pressure is sky high, so this week is all about de-stressing and getting back on track with food. Finally after 3 days of getting back on track doing lower carb, the scales are moving down....

Food has been diabolical these last few week's, no excuses, you name it anything with carbs and I ate it.... I have gained a lot, I am not going to weigh in now till August 1st, I am ignoring July's weigh in, and hoping I can get back to Junes weigh in......

I am getting excited about the surgery coming up, and really hoping I can do full-time at nails... I was pretty close to full-time before this all happened. All going to plan I am hoping that I may be able to get a good client built up for Christmas, but also a part of me doesn't want to get to optimistic as we all know what happened when I had surgery 8 years ago and got CRPS. 

Chico's heart came home yesterday, it still doesn't feel right, and I miss her each day, at least we have the heart...

I have decided to just put the research of Chico behind me for now, till after my surgery, but once that is done, I want to see if the death could have been avoided. The histology on her heart came back and she had a leaky valve..... and some other issues with the heart, I have done some basic research on it, but need to do more. They say it could be genetic, but will go into more details when I research more.

Anyway this update started on Monday so better get it up before another day/week goes by. 

Where do I start........

I dont even know where to begin....

Chico our beautiful puppy, (ok she was not a puppy she was nearly 8 years old), as you know passed away in surgery 10 days ago. It was heartbreaking and we could not understand how a routine surgery could have turned out this way. Remember this surgery was done in Hamilton as he was suppose to be the best vet and it was going to cost about the $4000 mark, so it was not something we just did, a lot of research went into this choice. This is what she was going to have done.... This vet invented this type of surgery for cranial cruciate ligament damage.

The vet offered to pay for an autopsy and we thought yes at the time, as we were hoping for answers, this all happened the day of the surgery so we were very emotional. This in turn meant we couldn't bring her home as a 'whole', as she would had been in a biosecurity area, the only option was to get her cremated, which is what we had planned, though we had talked about her coming home just to say goodbye, but that was not to be.   

So over the next few days, as we waited for the autopsy results, and her ashes, I was researching as much as I could about what could have gone wrong. 6 days later we get a phone call for the area manager from the vet place (he is the area manger from Auckland and Waikato and possibly the North Island), anyway the first words out of his mouth was "I am so sorry to have to make this call....", we were thinking what else could go wrong she had already passed.... but what he was about to tell us was in some ways even worse..... at the biosecurity place where they did the autopsy, Chico got put in the wrong coloured bag and got thrown out with the garbage, rather than the correct bag, waiting for pick up to be cremated. We just couldn't believe what had just been said..... we are not sure if the vet instructions were given wrong, or the laboratory stuffed it up. What was keeping us going was that we thought she was going to be coming home....... 

This brings us on to the next thing.... when they did the autopsy, they kept her heart out and part of her spleen, kidney, liver and some faeces which was going to have a more histology report done on them. We are still waiting on these results, well apparently they have been sent to our local vet, but we are waiting to meet up and talk it all through. Because they kept the heart out, we were able to get that cremated 75 grams worth of Chico - it is so unfair.

The final straw for us, was when her cremation got stuffed up. I keep having horror thoughts of how she would have been treated after the autopsy, just been shoved in a bag, and thrown in the garbage with all the other crap. 

Anyway onto the results etc, first off her surgery had been completed and they were just a few minutes from waking her up, they were taking her for the final x-ray to check that the surgery all looked good. After hours and hours of research, scholarly articles etc.... it looks like it was an unnecessary death, this is yet to be confirmed but speaking to other people, it looks like the surgical team did not monitor her breathing properly, which caused the lungs to collapse and her heart to stop. 

We are going to have a meeting with the manager that rang us with the news of the cremation, he is coming to see us - once we have all the results in. They have waived all the fee's, including the cremation of the heart.... and also sent us a huge bunch of flowers - damage control yes I believe so. We finally got her harness/strap/blanket and toy back yesterday, we wanted it back sooner, so Rusty could smell her and us as well. It no longer smelt of Chico, though Rusty could still smell her. What happens from here will all depend on what happens at the meeting, the best we can ask for is for them to say they stuffed up, will they? have no idea at this stage... will keep you updated on that one, and we want answers of who stuffed up the cremation.

Rest in Peace Miss Chico Chops - our beautiful gorgeous puppy, you are so missed by all of us, and we feel so bad this happened, we tried to do what we thought was best for you.... but failed.