Sharing Time

Time for sharing time about my dad. poor guy.
Definition of Dupuytren's contracture:
Dupuytren's contracture is an uncommon hand deformity in which the connective tissue under the skin of your palm contracts and toughens over time.
Knots of tissue form under the skin, eventually forming a thick cord that can pull one or more of your fingers into a bent position. Once this occurs, the fingers affected by Dupuytren's contracture bend normally but they can't be straightened completely, making it difficult to use your hand. Dupuytren's contracture can complicate everyday activities such as placing your hands in your pockets, putting on gloves or shaking hands. (along with typing, doing a high five, anything where you'd need to straighten your finger or stretch your pinky to the side)
Dupuytren's contracture is rarely painful, though sometimes the bumps of tissue on your palm can be sensitive to touch. Various treatments are available for Dupuytren's contracture to slow its progression and relieve your symptoms.

So this is the condition that my dad has. He had a procedure a year or two ago to try and treat it-and it did for a while-but it wasn't a permanent fix because it came back. This condition was the reason for his surgery yesterday-here's an example of what it does to your hands:

So this is an illustration of where they cut in order to remove all of the bad tissues and things:

Kind of frankenstien-esk right? I'm pretty sure that will leave a pretty gnarly scar...So after they were in surgery they also figured out that some of the skin on his palm was diseased as well so they had to also do a skin graft from his wrist in order to completely get rid of all the diseased tissues. Not only does my poor dad have some RARE crazy hand/foot problem-it has to be connected to another Rare Crazy disease with that! Poor guy...with all the medical weird things that have happened (like when his orbit {the bone under your eye that holds it where it should be} just dissolved and they had to go in to do plastic surgery so his eye wasn't sinking into his head, and his bizarre double vision that they can't link to anything or fix...) I guess it's a plus that he thinks watching these things is cool. Anywho-we are glad it seemed to go well after the skin graft-and we'll see how the recovery goes. Part of the recovery is wearing a brace that keeps his fingers straight all the time and attending RIGOROUS (very painful) physical therapy that is trying to get it to bend the right way again. We love you dad! Feel Better! And let's all feel very very grateful for our hands right now. and the small things like high fives.