I contacted the initial treating hospital and they said there was nothing else they could do for me - they instructed me to go University Hospital in Cincinnati as they were more equiped to treat me.  They said they would call University and let them know I was coming.  Upon arrival there I was immediately taken to the critical burns unit - the time at this point was approximately 3:30 PM.  I was treated by 2 doctors who had given me a shot of demerol and after abount 15 minutes the pain ceased greatly.  They requested a specialist from Shriner's Burn Institute next door come and this doctor completely explored my injury.  He told me that there was a miscommunication between Poison Control and the initial treating hospital, and due to the strength of the chemical I was using, and considering the duration of time for my exposure, the initial hospital should have injected the calcium gluconate right into my fingertips instead of applying it topically.  The doctor told me that it was too late for injection, and they he wanted me kept in intensive care over night and that he was going to provide me with routine injections of morphine.  I had told him "Doc, the demerol seemed to do a good job, don't think I'll need morphine".  He said "John, anytime in life you get a chance to get free and legal morphine, take it!"  God knows that as the night wore on, the morphine wasn't enough.  I also had to supplement with oral pain medication.  The greatest concern for doctor's that night was that I may have gone into cardiac arrest which is typical of hydrofluoric acid exposure.  It was night of living hell.

The following day I was released with a regime of topical applications and pain medications.  Over the following 2 weeks my hands shed layer after layer of skin.  They told me that my fingernails would likely fall off but they never did; some still grow with creases in them.  The posted photos are of my hands a few days after the accident.  The charred white is purely acid burn.  Over the following weeks it seemed that my hands looked brand new.  My skin was baby soft and as I engaged physical therapy, I came to get my feeling and grip rather well.  I thought the end of this nitemare was over..

I realized over the next couple of months I wasn't getting really good rest.  I was also aware that I was waking at night with my hands aching.  As this evolved, my sleep became less and less - it eventually grew into my hands going numb and my wrist and arms aching.  I was going into a downward spiral and became aware that I was clockwatching at night; every twenty minutes or so I would awake from the numbness and aching, look at the clock, and reposition my arms to go back to sleep.  As one can survive sanely over a minimal amout of sleep for a period of time, my deprivation was having devastating effects.  Anxiety and depression was setting in and the quality of my life was turing to crap.  At one point I realized I had not gone outside of my house for weeks and was finding difficluty in coping with everyday responsibilities- bathing, taking out the trash, having to make several trips to the grocery store because I was forgetting inportant things and overall engaging in "strange behavior" such as lightening a stove burner and learning later that it was burning but not knowing why. My communication with family and friends floundered and eventually found myself engagin in petti seizures where it felt my brain was being shocked or exploded electrically.  I also started severly biting my tongue at nite - sometimes bleeding and untimately the aching spread to my shoulders; it was as if an elephant was sitting my right shoulder particularly.  In September of 2003 I posted a desperate messsage on a local health care clinic and was invited to come see a Dr, Boxer who was a physciatrist.  Dr. Boxer did some routine workup and believed I would best if placed on some antidepressedents.  These drugs effected me sexually but provided no help of dealing with this montster. Thoughts of suicide were what got me to this point and my focus turned greaty towards following through with ending my existence and pain.   I was one psychotic broken man and was  becoming creative in means to ending my life to seperate myself from what was happening.  Upou the intervention of my dear Brother Paul (younger that I) he talked me into committing myself into a forenscic facility where the doctors my be able figure our what was happening with me,  There I was, a grown man wearing a hospital gown surrounded by people who seemed to need more than me. The two saving graces there were that they were giving me medicatiion that was vastly sedating me - I was sleeping all night and waking renewed.  I also had a wonderful psychiatrist who was very well spoken, attractive and caring.  We would talk about me and my great life and seemed to instill some hope.  Then on the first saturday of the week, a visiting phychiatrist came in my room to see how I was doing.  I had developed a nasty rash on my leg and she (the doctor) suggested that I was having an allergic reaction to the two medications I was currently only.  She said she was going to stop one, and when I heard which I gave an adamant no!  I said "this is the only drug that has beeing allowing me to get sleep in months over my hands numbing and aching.  This doctor wanted to dwell into my hands, how they were injured, and shortened our conference to obtain some medical documemtation she wanted to go over with me. 2 hours later she returned with stacks of prinouts that address neudegeneration due to hydrofluoric acid exposure and explained to me it was her field of study in graduate school; not many doctors were aware of fluoride effects/affects on the body, brain and central nervous system.  I believe Dr. Julie Renner was an angelic godsend to me at this point.      Dr. Renner defined the vehicle of transmission, the fact that it does tissue and bone destruction, and that ultimately it winds up attacking the hypocampus part of the brain that is responsible for memory, learning and psychosis.