It Gets Real!

January 16, 2014

 

 

We had an appointment with Dr. Burgess, the hand surgeon at Orthopedic Associates of Michigan building (OAM building) to discuss removing Shaun's arm. I can't believe we've come this far.

 

(Our happy and nervous face)

 

We were able to talk to Dr. Burgess about what the next step is. Normally he urges patients to think about their decision but obviously Shaun has had plenty of time to think about his decision and also has a lot of support from family and friends. The surgery won't get rid of the pain (nerve or phantom) but it will improve his quality of life.

He also checked for muscle, movement, and what the arm and hand looks like.

 

 

 He explained to us that the procedure would take around 45 minutes and would be out-patient. He is going the take some of the skin with feeling and use that to close up the wound. He really doesn't need any time off of work because it is a quick procedure. Another nice thing is that he doesn't have feeling in his arm really anyway so when they remove the arm, he won't have any pain from surgery after. The next thing was to get x-rays since Shaun has a metal plate in his arm. He had to make sure the plate wasn't going to be in the way of where they would remove the arm.

 

 

 In fact after the first x-ray, he was worried that the bones had never fused back together, so he had a second x-ray done. All was good though, thank goodness!!

 

 

So, the next thing to do was make the appointment (we figured it would be a ways out. You know medical appointments). We sat down and the woman said Thursday January 30th at the Walker Surgical Center in Grand Rapids, MI. Exactly 2 weeks out. HOLY CRAP!! NOW IT'S REAL!! We said that works! Wow, this is really going to happen! I'm pretty sure neither of us slept that night!