My hand

Despite having a very non-personable surgeon I managed to squeak enough information out of him to confirm what happened to my hand. My finger has what they call a pathological fracture. Definition: A pathologic fracture occurs when a bone breaks in an area that is weakened by another disease process. Causes of weakened bone include tumors, infection, and certain inherited bone disorders (found: http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/brokenbones/g/pathologic.htm).

My weakening was from an enchondroma tumor. Definition: An enchondroma is a benign tumor of cartilage. This type of tumor causes the formation of islands of mature cartilage in abnormal locations. Usually these tumors occur in the hands or in the long bones of the arms and legs. They are most often asymptomatic, and do not cause pain. If you do experience symptoms, these tumors can be removed; however, this is a risk of recurrence following surgery.

So the long and the short is that I had a tumor growing within the bone of my finger and when Abby fell on it it broke very easily. The picture above is what the tumor looks like before it is disrupted (obviously this isn't my finger since mine broke ;D). The doctor will perform surgery which will scoop out the tumor from the bone. Then they will harvest bone from my wrist and then slide the bone from the wrist into the hollowed cavity of the bone. They do have to open up the whole finger which I don't love but it doesn't sound like there are a ton of options. After surgery the whole hand has to be immobilized for 4-6 weeks. Then I will start PT to get my mobility going.

I am going to go to another surgeon at the hospital where brian works. We get 100% coverage for surgery at the hospital and their ortho team is supposed to be very good. Like I said my surgeon leaves me cold and his ratings are good but not glowing. At this point I am just anxious to get this all over with.