Francesco Paoli of Fleshgod Apocalypse has had another operation on his left hand, five years after the climbing accident, and he put the before and after photographs up himself.
The nerve damage was always the lasting part of it. A nerve was taken from his leg and grafted into his elbow, and that repair was done in 2022. The ulnar nerve is the one that did not come back. "I basically lost sensation and most of the muscles that lie between the bones of my hand," he wrote. "Unfortunately, that is gonna stay; I accept it and worked out exotic solutions (like rubber bands) to keep doing what I love the most, playing."
This operation was structural rather than neurological. The hand, he says, "was almost skeletal and we had to do something to protect the structures that were still working in there, like bones, ligaments, veins, tendons". Tissue was taken from his hip and transplanted into the empty areas a couple of weeks ago. "It looks and feels much better," he wrote, and then noted that he now has "a piece of my leg in my arm and some hip in my hand".
One more refinement is likely next year and it is already written into the band's calendar, so no shows go. They are in the middle of a European run as it is. He closed the post on the people who were not as lucky as he was: "They're the true warriors, together with all the doctors, researchers, scientists, nurses." And then: "Back to riffs and blast beats, over."