broken thumb

Hi all - sorry for no blog last night, but we had an emergency to take care of.

Things were wrapping up at bunko, and I got a phone call from Mimi -- I needed to meet her and Chris at the ER. Chris had hurt his thumb. So, I rushed out of there, and arrived at the ER at 9:00. Turns out, Chris had been digging a hole under the new stairs they just finished for the shop, for a support beam. It was an odd angle, and as he came down forcefully with the shovel, his hand hit the stair above the hole. Split his thumb open pretty badly, but also crushed some of the tip of the thumb and broke the joint at the top knuckle. Overall, not good.

Worse yet, it's his left thumb...and Chris is left handed.

We were in the ER until 11:30. The doctor numbed the thumb with a very painful series of shots. Then he put a few stitches into the gash to close it up. He is most likely going to lose his thumb nail. Then, after xrays and determining it was broken, he put it in a splint. With antibiotics and pain meds from a 24 hour pharmacy, we arrived home around 12:30. A late night...and I felt so bad for Chris. I don't like seeing him in so much pain, that was so difficult. And now he has to followup with an orthopedic surgeon, as the ER doctor thought it might need surgery since it isn't a clean bone break and it involves the joint knuckle. That appointment is tomorrow morning at 8:00 am.

We would appreciate your prayers -- that he won't need to have surgery, and that it will be able to heal naturally on its own. That Chris will have minimal pain and good spirits as he goes through what could be a long healing process. As it is, he can type a little bit but he is unable to write. And the pain is still pretty intense.

I'll keep you updated...