Surgeon

Randy Viola, at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail. Couldn't ask for a better place to have these surgeries done, or a better perfectionist to do them. So far he is very happy with the results. Given my relatively young age for the severe level of joint deterioration this was not an easy surgery to do.

The right hand fusion allows for a later joint replacement (now I am too active and would "blow it out" almost immediately. As there was a 85%+ loss of cartilage in the base thumb joint the fusion was the only option practical. For that, the face of the bones for the base thumb joint were 'shaved' and then 'marrow' from my radius was used as a filler, to keep the length the same. Although it feels like a loss of motion and limitation to me (as I've always been 'double-jointed) I will really have just as much use of my hand as Gary does.

Also, I had a torn ligament that had to be repaired. I was very pleased that the surgeon was able to repair that without a ligament graft. Two tiny titanium anchors (permanent) will hold that in place.

The left hand will be a more 'cutting edge' surgery which will put the joint back into place and use a new technique to create scar cartilage, replacing the cartilage currently lost. So where I now have bone-on-bone those points will be kitty-corner from each other and the worn spots will be 'encouraged' to grow scar cartilage (basically a dental pick used to make lots of tiny pricks in the joint face of the bone, causing it to scar over).