I am glad I live in the 21st century

I am. I'm glad -- glad I live today and not, say a hundred years ago, before the advent of socialised medicine, and before major progress in medicine itself.

This is what my left hand looked like a few hours ago, four days after a fairly major operation to free up the motion in my thumb and long finger.

My genetic heritage left me with a fairly common disease, Dupuytren's Contracture. Over the past twenty years I have had a half dozen small and big operations to give me back the motion that gets lost to the disease over time. With luck I won't have to have another for another four or five years, or longer. But, when I do have to have it, well, we have socialised medicine in our country, and I'm not expected to mortgage the house to pay for it!

As bad as this picture looks, it is good news to me, and I'll probably be using that hand almost as normal in a few weeks.

The shiny bits are not wet. It's one of the modern things here: "Crazy Glue" to hold the incision tight after stitching. :)