Bennett's five week pinky inconvenience is now no more. He had the pins removed this past Tuesday. Sounds nicer than it actually was. Leading up to the procedure, he was curious as to how the Doctor was planning on taking these grotesque pins out. Was she just simply going to unscrew them? Sounded too easy and construction like. Yet, that's exactly what she did. Here you can see the tiny screws laying on the white mat next to Bennett's hand. That's the only part that was unscrewed. Those minuscule screws came out of two ball looking things holding the wires/pins in place.
The Doctor originally planned on injecting Bennett with some numbing medication before removing the pins. Looking back, I bet she wishes she had. But for some unknown reason, she decided he didn't need it saying, "It will hurt just as badly to do the injection as it will to take the pins out, so we might as well just take the pins out." What did we know? We said, "Ok."
She got some wire cutters to cut the wires. Then she got some pliers so she could hold on tightly and wiggle the wires out of HIS BONE. He was more than uncomfortable. This kid has a huge threshold of pain. Yet he was wincing and gasping the entire time. She had to wiggle out pins from 4 different holes. The third hole was a killer. He almost screamed. I felt helpless watching him. I videoed the entire episode so he could watch it later. But it just seemed wrong.
Once the third pin came out, Bennett fell forward in his chair looking like he was resting his head on the desk. I thought he was going to say, "Wow, that was a doozy!" Instead, he started convulsing. His whole body was shaking violently. I stood up and grabbed a hold of him so he wouldn't fall out of his chair. I looked over at the Doctor, "What's happening?" She responded, "I don't know." That's all it took....Mama Bear instincts took over and I was going to take charge of my son's care now! I was about to tell the Doctor what to do (like I knew, but adrenaline takes over and you make quick decisions) when she abruptly stood up and said, "I'll go get some orange juice and crackers for him." Gee thanks.
As she's going to the door, I ask Bennett, "Honey, are you ok?" He immediately sits straight up and looks blankly around the room and says, "Did I pass out?" To which I nod in affirmation. His next words were, "I'm going to throw up." The Doctor scrambles for a trash can and runs out of the room to get his snack. I'm still standing there holding him for dear life. He is clammy with a cold sweat and dilated eyes. I'm just glad his body stopped convulsing. I seriously thought he was having a seizure and I didn't know what you were supposed to do for those.
This is the point in the story where you can tell the Doctor feels bad for neglecting the numbing medicine. The pain of pulling metal out of bone is excruciating. But Bennett persevered like a champ. The Doctor still had one more pin to go. It took as long to take that one pin out as it took to get all the other 3 out together. She was much slower and gentler. Thank God.
Bennett was still shaking when we left. Not how we foresaw the end of this broken pinky journey. So proud of his brave heart. Now...let's play basketball!
