Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Follow up (second) hand appointment with Dr. Lim



Our second appointment was Thursday march 15, 2012 at gilletts children’s hospital. Anderson was 17 and ½ months and we were going to schedule his surgery at 18ish months. This was basically the appointment to make sure everything was going well and to schedule his surgery. (although i am posting this now i wrote it when we came home that night so that i would remember everything.) 
     We got to the hospital a little early and after we got Andersons height and weight checked we were able to spend some time in the waiting room. Anderson just loves all of the toys and bright colors. He ran around quite happily until it was time for us to go to our room. This time there was a little toy car that kids can ride in. He loved it!  He sat in it a long time, and he squealed with delight when his daddy pushed him in it. Although he had to push him backwards so his feet would not get run over because Anderson did not understand  how to move his feet in it yet.



     After about a half an hour we were able to move to our room.
     On the way Anderson saw a bubble blower with fake fish floating and it changes to different colors with lights. We past it and kept walking to our room. But when we got to our room Anderson broke away from me and he ran all the way back down the hall as fast as he could to go back and see those fish. I was carring the diaper bag and a hot drink and could not keep up with him! He has never moved that fast before! Yikes! It made me want to get one of those child leash things for this summer!
     When we got to the room we waited only a few minutes and then a nice nurse came in to talk with us and ask us a few questions. She was our nurse the first time and remembered us. That was nice.
     Only a few short minutes later and Dr. Lim came in. He is such a friendly down to earth Dr. I love that he does not make me feel stupid if I ask him questions and he trys to explain things to us in smart, yet not confusing ways. I appreciate this about him a lot and it makes me feel very comfortable with him doing surgery on my child!
     Dr. Lim took another look at Anderson's hands and studied them a little bit making sure that all of the fingers were growing properly and not becoming tethered as he put it. (When a finger is attatched to a smaller or larger finger It can grow crooked or bent forward because of this). Thankfully he did not see any signs of this happening in Anderson’s fingers.
     Dr. Lim then started telling us how he had just been to a conference and was discussing hand differences with many other surgeons and experts and they all came to the same conclusion that it is best to wait as long as possible now to do the hand surgery.  So instead of   surgery with in the next month like we originally thought we will be trying the surgery around October when Anderson is around 24 months.
     I was mostly happy to hear this. I thought it would be nice to have the surgery behind us but it will be nice not to have to worry about having a cast or stitches during the summer! We also have some trips planned and I am glad that Anderson will be able to enjoy them now more then he could with a cast on.

1 comment:

  1. That's very interesting that your surgeon wanted to wait to do the surgery! Our surgeon here in Oklahoma City typically does the surgery around 12 months old, but maybe it's the type of syndactyly Joey has, I'm not sure. I never got to see his x-ray but it was very obvious from birth that his middle and ring finger were fused all the way to the fingertip, and the tiny bones at the fingertip were fused together. His little fingernails were fused together too. So they had to separate the bones at the top and do skin grafts to cover the skin on the 2 separated fingers. Our surgeon said we didn't have to do the surgery; we could wait longer but he suggested doing it before Joey goes to preschool. Well, we were pretty nervous about doing the surgery just 1 week before Joey turned 1 year old! He was already walking around and stumbling a lot! But we did it because we are expecting his little sister in December, and I thought it might be best to do it now so I can give him my full attention throughout all the healing stages, instead of having another baby to take care of as well. So we did the surgery and now everything is great! The cast is off and he is healing very nicely. He really acts completely normal! I wonder if he even remembers that his fingers used to be different.

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