Charlotte, I had that same surgery about 4 years ago.  A tendon from inside
my wrist was used for the joint.  The very worst part of the whole thing was
that they pulled the pin out without anything to deaden the pain and I
almost fainted.  They had me to lie down for a few minutes.  The doc wanted
to do the other one, but I'm holding out just as long as possible.
Gwen

I'm very impressed that you typed this with 4 fingers and even did caps!  
I've had enough trouble dressing myself with one hand immobolized, I can't
imagine doing it with only 2/3 of a hand!  (As anyone who's had thumb trouble
knows, functionally it really is at least 1/3 of a hand!)  I'm a big fan of
oversized sweatpants for such times.

You just got me remembering, when Dr Wroblewski cleaned out my thumb MCP
joint, I ended up with it being immobilized for 5 weeks because he found a
bone spur he had to clean out as well.  When they recast it after removing
the stitches, I had major pain doing anything that caused the cast to shift.  
I just lived with it, figuring it was just friction on the incision.  When
they took of the cast, it turned out one end of a steri-strip had popped up
and stuck itself to the cast.  Every time the cast moved, the steri-strip
tugged on the incision.  If only I'd known it was something fixable!

Rest and heal well!