January 26, 2006
(Hand Surgery)

2/1/2006

Thanks so much to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers this past week or so.  Joshua had the first of (possibly) several surgeries to separate the fingers on his right hand, up at UVA.  The purpose of this surgery was to separate out an index finger, which gives him the best opportunity to develop dexterity and fine motor skills.  From what we can tell so far, the surgery was as successful as it could possibly have been.  It took about 2.5 -2.75 hours (which was very stressful for Mama!), but the doctor came out immediately after surgery and told us that things had gone very well and that at this point, he was very pleased with the success of the surgery.  He said that the fingers separated out very nicely, he was able to keep both fingernail beds fully intact, and that with the skin grafts (they took a small elliptical shaped piece of skin from his groin area, then closed that off with a single line of stitching, which should show very little, if any, scar) went on nicely.  The circulation in both fingers was good, and overall he considered the surgery to be a success at this stage. 

Poor little guy is in a cast all the way up to his shoulder (the doctor said that he's learned from experience that if he just puts the cast up to the elbow, some children will find a way to get out of it...and the way Josh is, I feel certain he'd be one of "those children" :-).  The cast doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest -- we were given Tylenol with codeine to help him with the pain, and within 24 hours, he was off of that and on no pain meds (except a regular dose of Tylenol before bed to help him sleep more comfortably).  Of course, the anesthesiologists assured us that after surgery he would sleep the rest of the afternoon and night, and that he probably wouldn't be up and walking until the next morning (he'd be too unsteady on his feet).  Ha.  Right.  We got home from the surgery center around noon.  He snuggled with me on the chair for a couple of hours, then decided that since the cast wasn't going away, this laying around stuff was for the birds, and he wanted to play.  By 4:00, he was back to himself -- playing, toddling around, being his usual happy self.  He went to bed around 8:00 that night, and by 11:00, he was back up...for the rest of the night.  So much for sleeping the rest of the day and night away...he wanted none of that business!

We go back on Tuesday, February 7, to have the cast taken off, and I don't really know what lies ahead after that.  I think there will be some splinting involved, but I'm not sure exactly how that will work.  I do know that Dr. Chhabra told us that we'll have to do a lot of hand washing to keep the healing skin clean (that's going to be a CHORE!).  We had asked previously about physical therapy, and he indicated that the only "therapy" that Josh will really need is to start using the "new" fingers.  I'm looking forward to this next step, but I'm also a little apprehensive, because it's going to be a little higher maintenance than it has been so far.  But we'll manage -- he's worth it!!!

Thanks for all the love and support that you have given (and continue to give) us -- it means SO much!!!

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