Today I am recooperating after a long day at Scottish Rites Hospital for Children. Yesterday we drove to Dallas for Collin's early appointment. We hadn't been to Scottish Rites since he was 3 weeks old. Our morning began in radiology where we waited to have the first set of hand x-rays done. Daddy, Collin, and I went into the room where we were drapped in radiation protection aprons. Collin sat in Daddy's lap as the radioloist did his best to straighten out his hands. Collin hates for anyone to mess with his hands so decided to not cooperate with the radiologist. All of that to say we got the pictures taken and moved over to the hand clinic waiting room. We had a confusing morning as we didn't see our doctor, but a fill in. In the beggining she gave us some wrong information. One minute she said we would be waiting for him to turn two before beginning surgery and then ten minutes later she sent a nurse in to explain the do's and dont's of surgery day and to schedule it. She told me our doctor was in an emergency surgery and I could just meet him the morning of surgery. I informed her I didn't feel comfortable with that and I had too many questions I needed to ask him. I didn't drive six hours to not even meet the surgeon who will be opperating on my baby's hands. They said we could come back in the afternoon but Chris had a flight to catch so Collin and I took him back to the airport and then went back to the hospital. At this point in our day I was feeling very confused and discouraged. When we got back we met our hand surgeon Dr Oieshi. He was fantastic, so helpful, friendly, and informative. After introducing himself to Collin and I, the hour long appointment began.
He began by showing me Collin's x-rays which I was glad to see. He showed me where Collin is missing bone. On his left hand he is missing the top two finger bones on his pointer finger and he just has a sliver of bone on the top of his middle finger. On his right hand he is missing the top two finger bones. He talked to me about the bands on Collin's wrist. He said they were causing some edema (swelling) and he felt like we needed to go ahead and do surgery on the left hand and wrist this year. He is going to perform a Z-plasty surgery around his wrist and affected fingers. Then six months later we will do the right hand. He also said that around age four or five he would have to have one or two more surgeries. (I was kinda of surprised to hear that) The surgery itself can last any where from one to four hours. He said he expects it to only take two. We will check in early in the morning and stay one night in the hospital. His hand will be casted up to his elbow to keep him from wiggling out of the cast. The cast will completely cover his fingertips, so he won't be able to use that hand at all while it is casted. He will be in a cast for 4 weeks.
The scheduling office will call me next week but they expect it to be in about four months. I know children have surgery all the time but putting my baby under anethesia makes me really nervous. In a strange way it was comforting to hear that the surgery was necessary and not elective. Meaning there was more reasons than solely cosmetic to do the surgeries. Chris and I had really stressed over making this decision (to operate or not) and Dr. O just kinda made that decisions for us. He explained that if he didn't have the surgeries there could be later complications caused from the edema. I feel better than I did yesterday morning and as much as I am dreading surgery day, I am looking forward to starting this process and getting it over with.
Thanks so much for everyone's prayers yesterday!
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