Summer of 1969 and the surgery was done.  My first on my left side.  The hand surgeon met me near a year prior “one” time.  His office with no windows and I knew I had something to offer him.  He examined my hand formulating options with the biggest one I didn’t want.  To separate all the fingers and thumb. Then the problems I already knew some about.  The doctor said, “I just operated on a girl with the same defects as you.  I don’t know what circulation is in the hand and there is no way of knowing.  Also the bones in the fingers are so tiny I’m afraid if I separate them they will be prone to breaking. I will have to do a skin graft and may have to take some blood vessels from a leg.”

     My thoughts? I didn’t want the fingers separated for that reason myself; just give me a thumb of sorts.

     Quickly I asked him, do you have a bright flash light or can you get one quick?

     “Yes,” he said! “Why?”

     “Because if you shine a bright light through the hand you can see right through it, bones and vessels; and there aren’t enough vessels in there.”

     Quickly he produced a flash light from a drawer and turned off the lights and there it was.  Exactly as I said.

      “You’re right! What a great idea,” he exclaimed!  One vessel for all four fingers but no way to know what was going to the thumb.

     After the surgery he told me he was very concerned because in the six hour surgery almost no blood surfaced, just a tiny drop here or there every hour bringing great concern about infection.  He left the tip of my new thumb exposed from the full cast to watch for infection.

     1999 and this time with volumes more evidence of poor circulation from my heart to the entire upper left rib area, arm, hand, chest, back muscles etc. The artery was the problem. The plastic surgeon had argued with me many times planning the surgery.  For all the exercise I’d done, the left back muscles were still very thin and nothing on the left chest but tight skin over bone, like making a fist; the skin tightly pulled between the ribs.  Bloodied every time a nurse sanded the ribs to place a heart monitor on them, despite my telling them why not to do the sanding always done back then.  I’d had nuclear stress tests, and an entire workup for heart problems that decades later proved to be the effects of SPS disease.

     With all the high volume cardio sports and exercise I’d done my right side was over double the normal size top athletes like hard runners get; but the left artery was still at best half the size expected to be for normal, without the exercise I’d done.  Even one hour after the test that artery was 100% full of the contrast when it should have been gone in twenty minutes.

     Another test showed more internal thalidomide damage of great concern but that doctor knowing about the nuclear test result said, “I don’t know what is keeping your heart and left lung separated from your intestines and stomach and normally I’d strongly recommend surgery …. but not for you!  Don’t you ever let anyone do surgery on your chest unless it’s to save your life. You’ve done well so far so let it alone unless it becomes a bigger problem.”  Huh! Another thalidomide defect uncovered.  The diaphragm is badly deformed from my right of center below the heart to the bottom of my left lung.

     The plastic surgeon took an additional group of left back muscles to place on my left chest, rarely done, because of how thin the back muscles were, and no body fat.  Going on 40 and my right upper body was about four inches thicker than the left and I still had almost no body fat. I’d suffered from being cold all my life with so much missing, muscles too thin and poor circulation to the same.  I would experience rib-shaking cold on the left thousands of times when it was 72° and cooler.

     On my first summer job at $1 an hour, I bought an expensive winter coat worn all winter in school in classes my last five years.

     After the surgery the doctor came in with a big smile, expressed how well it went as I’d wondered if the saline implant was put in.  All I wanted is to be warm, add protection to my ribs and about the same depth chest even though there wasn’t enough muscle to match the massive right chest.

     Then he showed me an exercise to do as a set of ten reps and asked me to do it now.  Okay!  Bend my left arm from the elbow and wrist to my shoulder.  One and one half and it was over. Noooo! Thalidomide had struck again!  The pressure hit that fast and the swelling was immediate.  We both could see it puffing up in seconds.  It hurt from the pressure still building.  The argument about the poor circulation he refused to acknowledge possibly had become a problem.

     I remember word for word the conversation that followed post surgery.  Two hours later some sort of glycerin cream was applied to my left chest, arm and hand.  The pressure had me concerned my skin on the tiny hand would burst front and back.  The arm near doubled in size and even the doctor had been concerned the newly attached muscles on my chest would rip away.

     Again, like my hand, it took four months to heal when normal people heal in one month.  The cold I’d suffered with all my life was mostly gone.  My left ribs still shake at times but with less intensity.  My left chest has a little thickness yet still more than two inches less than the right.  My back is thinner now on the upper left but it always was anyway.  Not putting in the saline implant likely saved more problems given the lack of circulation. All turned out for the good.  And I told the doctor not to worry.  I’m okay with how it turned out.

     There are many subtle defects common to thalidomiders; and many unseen.  It’s the unseen ones that end our lives sooner.  Lots of nerve damage also, of which I have a lot, and on both sides.  We are still finding the defects.  I found one more last year and another this year.  Thalidomide is going to keep striking us.  We’ve only to wait!