So far I had briefly met with the hand surgeon at the ER where he gave me the choices of staying overnight and they would put the finger ‘together’ with a wire or Lori could sew the tip back on and I could come to his office on March 28 where he could check it out. I opted for the second so Lori got to work doing what she wanted to do 3 hours ago!

Another long story short: here it was Wednesday March 31 and I was sitting in the hand surgeon’s impressive new office waiting for him to come in after Elliot, nurse in training, had taken the bandage off. No, I didn’t look—wasn’t ready for that yet!

Dr. George Dreszer, a young, good looking man—heck when you are 80 everyone looks young!—with an easy smile, well trimmed facial hair, came in and after a few pleasantries, which did relax me, told me I had two choices—again!. The first was to let it heal naturally in which case he would have to see me every week to make sure there is no infection as that could lead to losing the finger or he could ‘chop’ (he didn’t use that word but it is all I can think of!) the tip off—and I didn’t hear a word he said after that. After talking for a few minutes I decided to go the former route. All I could think of was many years ago my dentist wanted to take out my 6 lower teeth as they could get infected. I had decided against it and here I was this many years later and all the teeth were intact!

I went home and the mind wouldn’t shut up. All I could see were horror pictures with first the finger falling off followed by the 9 other fingers, one at a time, then the arm and so on until I was left with just a toe!! On Thursday morning I called the doctor’s office and said I had changed my mind, that I would like the doctor to go ahead and ‘chop’ off the finger! (I have to get the receptionist’s name—she was really helpful and more than once made me smile.) Again, long story short: she arranged to have the procedure done on his lunch hour the next day—Friday—and knowing I didn’t have transportation said the doctor would pay for me to take a cab over to his office!

I called Allen and even though he still had company in town he said he would take me. I, also, wanted him to be in the room while the procedure was done and listen to what the doctor had to say before, during and after which I had learned previously was a good way to go. The appointment was set for Friday, April 1 at 12:15 PM. I suggested to Allen he come down a little earlier and I would get prescriptions for antibacterial pills, pain killers and maybe a sleeping pill or two.  The best laid plans of mice and men, etc., didn’t work out as it seems the doctor had written 3/31/16 and then changed it to 4/1/16 so the pharmacist wouldn’t accept it. No, it was not an “April Fool’s Day” joke!