Our Little Salamander

Isaac's hand is looking great and I am amazed at how well it has healed!

The surgeon joked so many times how children are like little salamanders and heal so quickly and he was right! We are thankful this was only a minor surgery and that Isaac tolerated it so well. 

Going into this hand surgery I felt a bit overwhelmed simply because the nurse in me wanted so many answers.  What will the recovery time be like? How long before he can get it wet? How often do we need to change the dressing? Should we be worried about function and pain control?

I was also a bit worried as the surgeon thought we should have done this a year ago. 

Although looking back I am sure this would have been so much harder on Isaac and myself a year ago.

It was hard to explain to him what was going on, but he was such a trooper and after a bit of a struggle with pain control he adapted quickly to only using one hand to do everything. 

I was under the impression originally that the whole process would be 2 weeks at the most. So when it took about 5 weeks I was thankful we did it earlier rather than waiting for the summer. 

So here are a few pictures of our little salamander healing...

Day 1: Isaac's hand pre-surgery

Day 7: During one of our many dressing changes....looking a bit swollen & bruised.

Snuggling after the dressing change.  

It was quite the process: Soaking it in soapy water in the tub, drying it with a hair dryer, puting bandaids with antibiotic ointment on them, then wrapping his hand in gauze, followed by an ace bandage and then a sock over everything with a hole for his thumb.

We did this every 1 to 2 days!

Day 24: Finally looking like an almost normal hand again!

Day 31: Stitches came out and Isaac was a CHAMP!  

Skin had grown over them (after being in for a month) and he sat perfectly still while they cut them off

I brought Richard with for the appointment to take the stitches out as I feared Isaaczilla would rear his roaring toddler head and attack the 2 very pregnant nurses who would be taking out the stitches!

He did so well and I was so relieved!

Elmo came with to the appointment (since he had come with the day of surgery) 

We celebrated by grabbing a quick treat at Starbucks afterwards. 

Isaac was sharing his juice and cake pop with Elmo

Our Little Salamander happy as can be to have his hand free from stitches and the dressing/bandages he had been wearing for the past month!

(Sorry for the poor quality of pictures...my phone isn't as nice as some other family members phone in our house)

The surgeon said we would most likely need to have this done again down the road as the web space that was created between his fingers won't "grow" with him as he gets bigger. 

However, he made it a little deeper than it needed to be this time so we could get a few more years under our belt before repeating the process.

I should have added a picture of the above happy little man getting dirty again for the first time in a month.  He is sure enjoying it now!

I am too because it was quite the task to keep a 2 year old boy inside and away from dirt, sand, and rocks! There is something not quite right about that. 

Boys just shouldn't be kept away from the outdoors.