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...