I saw Dr. Lamey, a hand specialist in Boise, on Tuesday, March 30. He said that I needed to have surgery on my left hand to fix the broken bone and keep it in the joint. He also decided to pin my clavicle, so it would heal quickly. He was amazed that I wasn’t in any pain.

I went in for surgery on Thursday, April 1 (yes, April Fool’s!). Because I had to have both arms operated on, they had to put the IV in my left foot. The nurse was ecstatic when she saw the great veins I had in my foot. She commented that most people don’t have those veins in their arms. They did a block on my right side, to help with the pain from the clavicle surgery. After they started administering drugs, I was out of it. I woke up after surgery and they asked how I was doing. I said I could feel my left hand. That was a huge mistake. They interpreted that to mean I was in pain, so they gave me a shot of morphine, which made me sick the rest of the day. They released me with my left hand in a temporary cast and my right arm in a sling. The block totally knocks out the nerves to the arm. The arm is useless; it flopped around like an uncontrollable chicken wing when I moved. It was the weirdest sensation to try and move my fingers and have nothing happen. They warned me that after the block wore off, I would be in severe pain. Later that evening, I felt better (after that morphine wore off and I stopped throwing up). Dr. Lamey called to see how I was doing. When I said I felt great and had no pain, he said that the block wasn’t totally worn off yet. He said that the surgery went very well. The next day I didn’t have pain either, and I haven’t had any pain since. I understand this is very rare. I am so fortunate not to be handicapped with pain. I felt so good, that I felt guilty for sitting around. I even managed to get on my bike for an hour in the evening.