No more work for a little while

Since this picture is at the beginning of today's blog, you are correct to assume that it is a sunrise shot, not a sunset.     You'll rarely see a sunrise on this blog, I prefer to sleep through them.

   But, Wednesday I saw the sun coming up through the windshield of the jeep as we drove into Rochester to keep Dave's appointment with the hand surgeon.   He's been having considerable pain in his right thumb for quite a while now, but too many things kept getting in the way of a permanent fix.     After all the work he did around the house when we got back, he couldn't deny the pain any longer.    In 2009 he had the same surgery on the left thumb, so we knew there was a solution to the problem.

Woozy patient in the car on the way home

A nerve block served two purposes.   The first to deaden the arm while Dr. Delsigniore did her magic, and the second to keep the pain away for about 12 hours post surgery.     The bad thing about it was that Dave had to maneuver a totally dead arm for those 12 hours.   He left the surgi-center with a huge, yellow arm support that looked like a chunk of swiss cheese and was very unwieldy for poor, slightly out of it Dave to handle.

Once we got home we discovered that Mr. David's Visiting Nurse Service had sent us a very gentle, curly haired male nurse to cater to his every need.

nurse Lewis checking patient's vitals

and making sure the elbow support is in place

and checking wrist alignment

and keeping the patient quiet at naptime

Dr. Delsigniore's sense of humor!

Nurse Lewis came back the next day to taste, I mean check,  Dave's dressing and make sure it was clean

Long story short, offending joint removed, tendons rerouted to form a "cradle" for the thumb and the healing begun.    No more big projects for Dave and we leave for points south at the end of October.

sunset behind the barn