{"id":5528,"date":"2011-05-17T22:04:16","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T02:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/?p=5528"},"modified":"2011-05-18T17:03:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-18T21:03:51","slug":"hospital-happy-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/2011\/05\/17\/hospital-happy-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital Happy Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n

Cell phone image created by my younger daughter Alissa Morris. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Hand Report; Hospital Happy Dance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That’s me dancing in my room on Tuesday evening in St. Charles Hospital on Long Island. Why the happy dance? I had, with the help of younger daughter Alissa–who was visiting with my younger sister Arna–and older daughter Jennifer, BAA Executive Director and IT specialist–via cell phone, just gotten on line with the wireless hotspot from my Verizon Motorola Droid cell phone! Whoohooo. <\/p>\n

So how did I wind up in the hospital? I flew to Hartford, CT on Saturday, May 14. Joe Peters who was attending the Sunday seminar kindly met me at the airport and drove me to the hotel in Storrs on the UCONN campus. Joe also did yeoman’s service handling the BAA sales table on Sunday. The infected hand remained infected. The swelling was about the same. Hand surgeon friend Steve Garren, plastic surgeon Dr. Ivan Turpin (who contacted me via the blog), and several other medical friends advised that I get to the hospital asap after the program unless the new antibiotic that Steve had suggested on Friday worked miraculously well. It did not. With a most appreciative audience in excess of 150 folks, the program went well. Having my arm in a sling to elevate the hand did not hamper me until the late-afternoon Photoshop session. <\/p>\n

During a late morning break a very concerned and caring woman named Patricia came up to chat about my infection. I removed the bandage and the splint and she noted some redness on the dorsal surface of the palm that I had missed. She told me that she had had an infection after trigger finger surgery, and held up her right hand as proof. The last digit of her middle finger had been amputated and two adjacent fingers had been somewhat mangled. Needless to say, she got my attention. I was ready to leave for the ferry and head to a hospital on Long Island. As part of me did not want to skip out on the afternoon session I opted to ask for on-the-spot medical help. <\/p>\n

Drea Koval, a veteran ER nurse and John Vose, an experienced EMT stepped up to the plate for me. Noting no heat to go along with the redness, no red streaking, and good capillary refill in all five fingertips each felt that I would not be in additional danger by staying. So I stayed. In a strange twist off fate, it turned out that I had awarded three of the top contest spots to images created by Drea Koval while John Voss garnered an honorable mention in the Birds category, <\/p>\n

Once the program was over I high-tailed it down to the New London-Orient Point ferry catching a ride from Pat Welch, a kind seminar attendee who lived not to far from New London. I was met at the ferry terminal by my two sisters, Arna the younger, and Ilene the older. I decided to head straight to the hospital. The ER was not too bad and after evaluation and a bag of intravenous antibiotics they were ready to send me home. I suggested that I be admitted and be seen the next day by the surgeon who rebuilt both of Ilene’s thumbs so that he could irrigate the infection as Steve and Ivan had suggested…. I am guessing that the ER physician did not take kindly to my self-evaluation as my idea did not fly. They did tell me that Puopolo’s office would be expecting my call the next morning at 9am. I took a cab to my Mom’s and was asleep by 3am. <\/p>\n

Ten seconds after first seeing my hand Dr. Puopolo said, “We need to get you into the hospital tonight. Surgery at 7:30am on Monday to put in a tube and flush and drain the hand.” It is now Sunday at 9:49pm. Though I will not see the doctor until Wednesday morning he did relay the following great news: “The tendon itself is not infected.” I am in a splint with lots of bandages in place. The local is starting to wear off but I have not requested any pain meds yet. As the surgery was much more extensive than the original surgery I was given a general anesthetic; I came out of it fine but for the feeling of a sore throat that comes with having a breathing tube inserted while you are under. The staff has been great and I have great confidence in Dr. Puopolo. More news tomorrow. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ngg_shortcode_1_placeholder <\/p>\n

Cell phone image created by my younger daughter Alissa Morris. <\/p>\n

Hand Report; Hospital Happy Dance <\/p>\n

That’s me dancing in my room on Tuesday evening in St. Charles Hospital on Long Island. Why the happy dance? I had, with the help of younger daughter Alissa–who was visiting with my younger sister Arna–and older […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-90","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}