At the three week week point, I went for my third follow-up appointment and was still experiencing a great amount of swelling pain and immobility in my entire left hand. More pain meds prescribed. And next week's appointment scheduled for the following Monday. On the Sunday before that appointment, I received a call informing me that my surgeon, Dr. Charles Ubelhart had returned from his vacation needing multiple heart bypass surgery and had DIED on the table. I was stunned nonetheless. Initially, of course, I was saddened for the staff and for his family and then I started to think - " should this man have been operating on me only 3 1/2 short weeks before?". I was then told that I would be scheduled to see Dr. Dan Thompson for my next follow up on Tuesday. What could I say? I went in expecting the best. I came out in abject terror feeling utterly and completely alone. My appointment with Dr. Thompson went as follows: he walked in, introduced himself, took one look at my hand and said "wow, I don't like the looks of that! You shouldn't have so much swelling and that kind of discoloration and pain this far post op. We need to get you into some physical therapy - I'll be right back". Needless to say, the good doctor NEVER returned. He sent in an assistant with a physical therapy order and planned to leave it at that. Unfortunately, I wasn't done - I had questions - I needed pain medicine - how could I do PT when I couldn't even move my hand - could I drive yet - what was going on? Dr. Thompson never came back. The assistant went into the room where he was already seeing another patient and got me yet another Dilaudid refill and told me that yes, I should try to drive - wow, while on an extremely strong narcotic? I took my prescription and physical therapy order and left. Time for a (third) opinion...

How this all started...Routine surgery to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

For the year of 2008, I had been dealing with an extremely painful problem in my left thumb. When it got to the point where I couldn't move it without excrutiating pain, I went to see my Orthopedist. He informed me by doing some simple thumb movement test that I had "stenosis". For this I was given a shot of cortisone and told it would only last a month or so. I then began Bikram (hot) yoga which I found completely alleviated my pain. Then I got busy and had to skip a month of classes which meant another shot. So back to yoga I went and again no pain until the dead of winter set in and I opted to lay off the yoga and not go from the hot room to the freezing outside and back came the pain. This cycle was one year almost to the day and this time the doctor convinced me that a "routine" DeQuervain's release surgery would have me better than new in three weeks time. Reluctantly, I scheduled the surgery for February 9, 2011 and was told without a doubt I would be able to run my annual 10-mile first race of the season on April 10. And so it begins because today is May 11 and now I can begin to tell my story of the horrible affliction known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome...