The hard cast came off my wrist and forearm today. In addition, two stainless steel pins were extricated. The surgeon pulled them out with sterile pliers, basically.
The pins had held the lunate and scaphoid bones against each other so that the new scapholunate ligament could establish itself.
The second pin had a slight bend in (by design), and was not easy to pull out. I was very thankful for the fat syringe of lidocaine that was deployed on my wrist. Lidocaine blocks the pain signals that nerve cells send to the brain, by interfering with the so-called sodium channel that is the pathway for the signals.