Good luck w/your recovery! Glad you were able to play a bit.
Seems like an opportune time for an update on my hand. Therapy was helping but just wasn't getting me there. So I saw a hand specialist last week. He said I had the beginning of trigger finger. He recommended a cortisone shot (which the orthopedic doc I'd seen also suggested, but he said he preferred that I see the specialist first). He said I could just do therapy exercises at home, and scheduled a follow-up for a month, then said, "But I expect you to call and cancel because you'll be feeling okay". I had a therapy appointment for the hand Thursday that I kept, and updated the therapist while she did the hand massage and stretching. I told her I was seeing signs of improvement, and was showing her the bend when I got a sharp pop and pain in the end knuckle. The finger moved very freely after that, and I was able to fully curl it to my palm on its own for the first time in months. It didn't stay like that, but I was thrilled. It takes a little painful stretching each day, but I'm finally able to grab a guitar w/o a full stretching regimen. The last two days, I've taken about 30-45 minutes just to play for the hell of it. I still have to use a little extra effort to get that full curl in the first time, but it stays flexible for much longer now. I've lost a lot of the little chops I had, but I know I can work back to that.