Update on Joe's hand

I am busy trying to update this blog from the last week or so...which is difficult given I took over 200 pictures on May 17th...the Norwegian Constitution day. However, I am taking a break from uploading those pictures to give you an update on Joe. He had an appointment with the ergo hand therapist (like physical therapy for hands) last week and then had an appointment with the hand surgeon again today.
Joe has been very good about wearing his finger splint over the last 3 weeks. They put the fear of never having use of his finger and it being deformed forever into him, so he has followed the rules of wearing the splint to a tee. He shoots baskets and skateboards but grudingly dropped out of rugby (which nearly killed him) to adhere to the rules of the hand surgeon. Today he was given permission to try and move his finger. It looked much better...the swelling (after 8 weeks) has finally gone down some and his finger was actually straight and not in that deformed, Boutonniere's position that it had healed in. Unfortunately, he has almost no movement in his finger and it was very painful to try and move it. The hand surgeon called in a collegue for a second opinion. They are afraid that the large and very deep scar that he has on his knuckle has actually healed to the bone...making it virtually impossible for the tendon to reattach itself. However, she pointed out again that the surgical fix for this kind of thing is not easy and does not have a good percentage of good results. Sigh... So it was decided that we would give the splint 3 more weeks (which was the original plan). Joe was pretty shocked at how little he could move his finger. I have done a lot of research on this type of injury and they are following the same protocol that they would be in the U.S. Unfortunately, we all know that this could have been avoided if we had had proper medical care in the beginning. The hand surgeon, whom I really like, actually apologized to us for the shoddy healthcare we received up until this point. She went to school in the U.S. and Scotland and knows that the socialized health care system can breakdown very easily. Too bad our family is 2 for 2 in that department. We have a year left and I am praying for good health and no accidents for the next 12 months!