It was a typical dark winters night that I lay awake unable to sleep. My constant companion the lynx, who at this time of night would be fast asleep alongside me, was also wide awake. Continuously jumping off the bed and hissing loudly at the dark open window, where something else was hissing back. After a few hours I swung my legs out of bed and walked through the darkness to the window. As I drew the curtain back the pain and impact of what felt like a gunshot at point blank range went through my right hand. Leaping back and screaming in pain, I ran into the bathroom, where to my horror my punctured hand was swelling by the second. As I clutched it under the cold running water, I saw the two distinctive holes, one having pierced right through the third joint. My hand continued to swell at an alarming rate, and within minutes we were speeding through red lights to a nearby hospital. The swelling at this point had started to travel up the arm to my elbow. Whatever was inside felt like a destructive cutting torch burning through tissue and bone.
The doctor on night duty casually gave me a tetanus injection, stopped the bleeding and bandaged it up, dismissing it he then sent me home. During the next few days through the worst pain I slipped into a state of delirious hallucinations. My neck and face had swollen and started turning blue. Two days later, on an unexpected visit from my sister in law who is a trained theatre nurse, she persuaded me to return back to the same hospital, supposedly our best private one. This time it was midday and the trauma unit responded swiftly. My body had started going into shock, with the venom now absorbing throughout my system. An ultrasound immediately showed a fluid collection along the dorsal surface of my hand. While being hospitalized, a couple of experts from the snake park had arrived, and confirmed their thoughts that it had been a large puffadder.
During the surgery that followed in the operating room, the surgeon first performed a debridement. The surgeon removed tissue and the open top part of my hand would eventually be closed up, soon after only to cause a haematoma. Infection had set in, and as is often the routine, an amputation of the limb is considered. Bearing in mind that I had been a goldsmith and creative person my entire life, this was the most terrifying thought. Weeks in hospital would be endured on injections of Pethadine, morphine, and anything the sisters could administer, but nothing could help for this type of pain. I was in an orthopaedic ward, together with someone who had just had his hand re-attached, and another who had both his arms torn off in a machine. The nurses called it the pain ward, as the pain medication wore off, everyone would start screaming, and nurses would come running with syringes of whatever would take the edge off. This was where they kept patients ready for repeated surgery. The surgical procedure would be repeated, with weeks turning into months of continuous pain, and most days spent at the hospital having X-rays, scans, and bone density tests. Hours of physiotherapy treatment everyday proved futile. Eventually this particular surgeon suggested that I see a more specialized hand surgeon. (Isn’t that what he should have done in the first place) Apart from the third metacarpal joint being destroyed, scar tissue had formed along with tendon adhesions. By this time I had acute septic osteomyelitis.
I had gone through everything possible, only to be back at the start again. As I walked into the Plastic Surgeons rooms he recognized me. He had recently performed a re-attachment of an entire hand on someone else who had put his arm through a timber yard saw. This surgeon took one look at me, asked what I’d had for breakfast, and calmly said that he would do the operation within a few hours! He was keen to attempt to repair all the previous damage and trauma. Later that night in hospital I awoke from yet another procedure to repair and reconstruct the fine and delicate structures within the hand.
For many weeks to follow, most Fridays were spent on flights to Johannesburg, more than a thousand kilometers away, where a professor of hand surgery attended to me. There was no option of replacing the joint, as the damaged metacarpal bone would not accept this procedure. Once again there was a suggestion of simply amputating the finger in what is called a ray amputation, removing the finger along with the bone right down to the wrist, then reconstructing the hand. My entire arm was then put into a traction brace, with external wires from each finger in traction down to my elbow...it looked like a bionic arm! This attempt to prevent the joints from fusing again did help to some degree.
Despite having gone through all the trauma and pain, I was still alive, as well as having both my hands.
This event was reminiscent of many years ago when I had been shot, and bleeding profusely had gone through all the same smells and sounds of Operating Rooms and surgeons.
Seeing the reality of how life can change within a split second, you then begin to appreciate every single moment that you have survived, and live with more determination.
One life, live it now
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