Meeting with the surgeon

Monday, September 17, 2012

I waited all weekend to finally get in to see Dr. Perlik, the surgeon who was going to do my hand surgery.  I drove with a friend from the Panthers to one of the games of our tournament this past weekend Sunday).  It was really hard to be there and not get to play. The coach from Wake Forest was going to come and watch me catch, and  I couldn' t because of this injury, so I was even more bummed. It was awful! Finally it was Monday at 1:30 and my dad and I were heading over to the Matthews office of Ortho Carolina to meet with the doctor.  He already had my x-rays, so he knew what we were there to discuss.  I told him my pinkie and ring fingers were numb. My pinkie and my palm had turned purple over the past few days and looked bruised. There was also more swelling in my hand.   Dr. Perlik did some tests to see if I could tell how many prongs he was touching the tips of my fingers with.  I wasn't exactly sure what he was doing at first so I watched.  He laughed and said, "Turn your head".  So I did.  I knew when he was touching my fingers with one or two prongs.  The reason he did this was to find out if there was any damage to the ulnar nerve which kind of works as a pulley for those fingers and runs right over the hook of the hamate that I had fractured.  I passed the test and he felt there was no tendon or nerve damage.  That was a relief.  But he said he needed to be really careful when he goes into my hand that he works around the ulnar nerve.  He also thought that I didn't injure my hand last Wednesday when I swung the bat.  He felt like I had injured it at some point before and this swing just really broke it.  He said that on my x-rays where the fracture is, it is kind of blurry.  If it was a recent break, it would have been a smoother and cleaner line.  I thought back to several times when my wrists hurt in the past couple of years and I had to tape them.  It could have been any of those times that I injured my hamate bone. 

 

 

We spoke a bit more with Dr. Perlick and he said pretty much the same thing as Dr. Boatright; do surgery to remove the hook, smooth down the rest of the bone and splint for ten days.  He said basically we will be waiting on the soft tissue to heal.  He also said it will be sore where the bone will be smoothed out.  I am usually pretty good with pain....I always have something that hurts going on with baseball!  He told us that someone from OrthoCarolina would call us tomorrow to schedule the surgery, which he felt could be this week.  I just want to get it over with now!