3 second mistake

[kdoria]

Hello all,

I'm new to this, but figured it would be a good place to share some thoughts with some link-minded people. So here's my story:

Recently (Oct 13) I had an incident that ended up costing me half my index finger on my left hand. Obviously in comparison to many others my injury is very mild, that being said, I am still trying my best to work through everything. I was helping a friend work on his car, something I enjoyed doing very much. Simple maintenance, just putting in a new battery. When he started the car up there was a slight buzz from the fan belt, not anything to worry about. Still, my friend asked if I would just look at it. I saw no issue in this and told him to turn the engine off and I would give it a peak, he turned it off. Now this is where our issue arises, I then told him to make sure he didn't turn the engine on. He said okay. There was about a 3-4 second gap between that "okay" and me putting my hand on the fan belt, when suddenly I heard the engine start up. In what seemed like less than a second later, the tip of my index finger had been ripped off and my middle finger was mangled to shreds. Apparently we had a bit of miscommunication there. While in the hospital the surgeon I saw initially wanted to amputate both what was left of the index and the middle finger. After hearing that, I became fixated on just saving my middle finger, which they did. The index was amputated down to about the middle knuckle. Now here is where another issue popped up. This all happened while I was away at college, a couple weeks after the accident I went home to see another surgeon. Long story short, this second surgeon admitted that had I been in his care the day of the accident he would not have amputated the index finger at all. He claimed he would have tried to use cells from ground up pig bladder, or reattachment of the tip. This wasn't great to hear. All in all, I believe I am dealing with the situation the best I can. Any advice on how to keep pushing forward would be greatly appreciated! It's been nice to read all of your stories, I felt like it would help sharing mine. 

[snowyh]

Welcome to the forum, kdoria, and thanks for sharing you story. Yes, as you say, your amputation may be considered mild compared to those of others, but you know... I'm more upset at hearing your story than I normally am when reading about how others became amputees. You see in cases like mine (cancer), no one was responsible for the limb loss except maybe God/karma. In workplace accidents or where the accident was the result of someone else's negligence, you're injured but you at least get the satisfaction of winning a $$$ settlement to help balance the scales a bit. However in your case, the injury was due to an honest miscommunication between you and a friend. So, we're either back to blaming God/karma, blaming a friend or blaming oneself. If I were in your shoes I guarantee I'd be feeling conflicted about that.

And then to top matters off, you got a surgeon who wasn't particularly ambitious about saving as much of your fingers as current medical technology & a good surgeon's skill will allow. He/she didn't really do anything wrong... what they did has probably been an accepted procedure for your type of injury for a long time. But it still sucks to later find out that you may have had other options. One thing to keep in mind, though: these less aggressive "limb-salvaging surgeries" don't always work out. Sometimes they just result in months or years of pain or dragging around a useless limb until the decision is finally taken to do what should have been done in the first place... often by a different surgeon, because the save-the-limb doc has a God complex and won't ever admit failure. Having said that, I believe that most amputees would prefer having been given the opportunity to keep more of their limb(s), including me!

So, here we are. Life took an unexpected turn and there are no do-overs. Everyone heals psychologically at their own rate. In your case, you've got extra crap to deal with than just adapting to life with fewer fingers. You've already taken an excellent first step... reaching out to other amputees. I hope you will also take advantage of other resources available to you like a local face-to-face amputee support group or professional counseling. Working through all of this will take some time, so don't expect to be all better by Christmas. But you'll get there, that I know.

Helen

[kdoria]

Thank you, Helen. You are exactly right. We are all faced with our own battles, and I am just dealing with mine the best I can. I am currently in search for some face-to-face support groups in my area, it helps quite a bit to know there are others out there dealing with battles similar to my own. Anyway, thank you for the support. I know I can make it through this eventually.

[stonecutter]

Helen's response pretty much sums it up for a lot of us. You learn to deal the best way you can.

kdoria, I could really relate to your statement where you say, "it helps to know there are others out there..." When I was still in acute care after my amputation, I was in the ortho wing, but the bulk of the others on the ward were hip or knee replacements. Up until then I was feeling like I was in the worst shape of any patient and that was pretty overwhelming. It wasn't until I went to the nearby rehabilitation hospital until I was exposed to other amputees. A lot of the folks I met were dealing with similar issues, but the most valuable contacts I made were with people who were doing better than me emotionally, but physically they were much worse off.

It sounds like a crappy thing to say until you understand what I mean so I'll give you an example.

One of the first people I met was injured in an industrial accident (like me). He had fallen between the tracks and the body of a bulldozer. Lost his leg above the hip (including part of his pelvis) and his arm on the same side completely into his shoulder. There was no way hey could get him up and walking on prosthesis and at the time, there was no arms that would work for him. His attitude was amazing when I met him, but it wasn't always that way. He had been in that rehabilitation hospital for six months and in acute care for a number of months prior as his injury was severe in comparison.

It made it hard to feel sorry for myself when this guy had figured out that there will still be a life after he got out of there. We lost touch, but the last I heard was that he had gotten married, started a successful business and has a family.

Life was paused for a while, but he figured out how to push the play button and get on with it.

Keep on working on it!  I hope you're having a good day.

[bassett]

Hello kdoria.

All I can add to the responses is that you cannot go back and change what the first doc did or what the second doc told you. You were put into a situation that is impossible because you were not trained or learned on the latest salvage technology. I say all of that in order to try to help you let go of the "what ifs".

I was t-boned by a student-athlete in my high school (I'm a teacher/coach) while riding a Harley. My doc is very good, and I completely admit that I was very lucky in that department, but we still spent 30 months and over 20 procedures before I finally just asked to amputate. I found out that my wife was 8 weeks pregnant the day I found out that my last "attempt" to fix the leg did not work. My doc understood that I was bound and determined to be on 2 feet by October 8th (due date). So, when I did bring up amputation he was completely on board. But, if he had baulked and not wanted to do the surgery, then I had already set up another surgeon through a prostetist I meet in a different city. So, my point here is, I regret spending 30 months in pain trying to salvage the leg, but I can't blame the doc for not doing it day 1. While many surgeons are type A guys and gals that see trama as projects to finish, I still believe that most of them make the best call they can in the heat of the moment. I guess I'm just an optimist.

As far as the mental aspect of needing to vent or find others in my situation, I would say that while I was in pain I definitely would have used any resource I found. But now that I'm 4 days out of the amputation, and pain free, I feel good mentally and have had 30 months to come around to the idea that "it is what it is and I need to do whatever I can to be pain free and mobile". So, the suddenness of your finger loss is something that I cannot imagine. I wish you well and I will end by saying; every day you get to choose what type of mood you will be in. There are chemical reasons for mood changes, but you can at least put yourself in the best possible mood your brain will allow. Focus on the positives (didn't lose the whole hand, didn't lose the arm, kept the middle finger, and so on) and do your very best to let the negative fade away. Because you cannot change the past, only your future.