I came home today from Lance’s follow-up appointment to find this beauty waiting for me!! It seems like I have been waiting for forever for the Hollyhock to bloom and now it has. It was well worth the wait.
Lance’s follow-up appointment went really great. No more surgeries. He is healing up nicely and the surgeon was most pleased with his work. Though he will never be able to pursue a career as a hand model, the scarring should heal up to not look so gruesome. I am including photos of his hand/thumb below. I must warn you though. The first ones are sort of…well, gross. Here they are:

Right before the second surgery. The skin flap obviously didn’t take. The pins were because he fractured his thumb at the same time

where they harvested the skin flap for the second surgery. the surgeon moved an artery with the skin so it would have its own blood supply. The cut down his hand is the removal path, then the surgeon threaded it under the skin to Lance’s thumb
It has been a long and twisted path through this but we are healing as well. Now, learning how to use what is there. I know Lance will have it all down in no time. For me, today’s appointment felt like it lifted about a million tons off of my shoulders.