Bilateral Trigger Thumbs

Back in March I mentioned that Harrison's pediatrician believed that he had "trigger thumb" which is a condition wherein his ligaments are obstructed and cannot pull his thumbs straight. After consulting with an orthopedic surgeon at Seattle Children's Hospital, we were told that there is no therapy to correct the issue and that surgery is the only option. If we didn't correct it in the near future, his bones would continue to grow while his thumbs were stuck and the bones would eventually become malformed; surgery later on would not correct the issue. The problem is not genetic, he was not born with it and it was not caused by injury. In children it can simply occur (although in adults it can be caused by repetitive movement or injury) and does often enough that the surgeon does about one of these operations a week.

Well, no parent likes to hear that their three year old needs to be put under anesthesia but as far as these things go, it was really a minor surgery; we scheduled it for May 14th as my mom would be available to stay with us for a week. Each thumb required a small incision and a snip to a ligament sheath that released the ligament and allow it to function normally, about ten minutes per thumb. Here are before photos of Harrison while waiting to be called into the anesthesia room; note the super hero cape and batman shirt... taking uncle Jon Jon's advice we told him that after the doctor fixed his thumbs he would have "super thumbs" with the rare power to win all thumb wrestling matches and give super duper thumbs up:

The team at children's is great and when it came to the anesthesia mask, they let him swab the inside with a strawberry scented cotton ball and then told him it was just like a fire fighter's mask (which he loved considering his FF grandfather, Zaidy, was in the waiting area). He was still nervous but dad and I started singing the University of Washington's "Bow Down to Washington", a bedtime favorite, although he impressed us by refusing to fall asleep until the last couple lines, he really didn't want to fall asleep.

After drinking a hot chocolate and eating a yogurt to keep this pregnant mother stable, despite the fact I didn't want to eat, it was already time to go meet Harrison in the recovery room. From past experience, we knew that his father always vomits and his mother always cries when coming out of anesthesia so we were prepared for these possible outcomes. What we were met with was a groggy little boy who cried, begged to take the casts off and refused to drink apple juice, eat crackers or Popsicles and fought like a boxer to get away. Dad held him while he arched his back and flailed his newly cast-ed arms and begged to go outside.

After about an hour and a dose of Tylenol and a bit of Popsicle to level out his blood sugar, he was calm and ready to go home. The nurses gave him a "hospital bag" (with latex gloves, stickers, band aids, mask, medicine dropper), a stuffed dog with a mini-hospital gown and bandaged up thumbs just like his, a new Kinects toy and two Popsicles to take home.

Our boy had a lot of caring people around him. His Po Po flew up from Las Vegas and spent the week with us to help and a lot of friends and family came by the house. Many of his friends in the neighborhood came by with balloons, new movies, a new kick ball and generally lots of love. Uncle Jon Jon sent over a neat Toy Story video game. Great Aunt Sharon sent some toys and t-shirts in a box plastered with multicolored stamps.

Harrison spent 10 days with the casts on and after just a few hours he had learned to pick things up with his other fingers and generally got along just fine. It did take two of us to bathe him and there were some foods we had to feed to him to keep his casts clean and dry. He couldn't ride his bike or go to Little Gym but he otherwise functioned fairly normally.

Today we spent 60 minutes driving to the hospital and back for his post-op appointment to have his casts unwrapped (partially by me) and checked by the doctor in less than 5 minutes. He didn't like the look of his incision wounds, still a little blue with bruising and some of the dissoluble stitches visible, and he said they hurt but once we put some band aids on them he calmed down. He spent the next few hours holding his arms in a box shape parallel to the ground and making me feed him and hold his sippy cup for him... honestly it was easier with his casts on! In fact prior to the doctor visit he asked to leave them on a few more days as he had grown accustomed to them and liked that he could hit things hard with them.

This afternoon we went to the park and within minutes he was picking up tree branches and holding things normally. Just before bedtime, one of his band aids had fallen off and he didn't notice it was missing so I am sure the pain he seems to feel is mostly mental. Tomorrow we go to a make up class at Little Gym (no physical restrictions are required!) and once it looks like he is willing to grip things tightly it will be time to get on the bike again. I think we are all looking forward to life going back to normal.