Well, as a lot of you may know, Jonathan (now four and a half years old) was born with a duplicate digit, i.e. two thumbs on his right hand. This precipitated comments such as "Give me six" and "Do you have six fingers on your right hand? My father was killed by a six-fingered man" (From "The Princess Bride" movie).
Well, one thumb was slightly smaller, and was obviously the duplicated thumb. We spoke with a pediatric hand surgeon when Jonathan was an infant and decided to operate when Jonathan was old enough to understand and want the surgery and yet young enough that it would be before school. (He is in pre-school currently and can't hold a pencil properly or use child scissors.)
Earlier this week, Julie was talking to Jonathan and trying to understand how he was feeling about the upcoming surgery after he overheard a phone call to the surgeon. She knelt down by Jonathan and rubbed his duplicate thumb. "Jonathan, honey. Do you remember when we talked about a doctor removing this?" He looked up at Julie. "Would you still like to have two thumbs like Mom and Dad?" After a long pause, Jonathan said, "I would kind of like to keep my 'lucky thumb'-- How about he takes off one of my fingers instead!" Julie spoke of all that he could do with only one thumb and he said "that would be all right."
Jonathan was very good the morning of the surgery up until just after the anesthesiologist came, when he said "I don't want to be here anymore, let's go home." "I gotta go!" He made to get off the hospital bed where he had been making cards with stickers and paper. Well, a little distraction and about 10 minutes later he was rolled past the red tape where parents say goodbyes and off to the operating room. Everything went well with the surgery, and it only took a short while.
When they wheeled Jonathan back, he was alert and very chipper; chatting with the orderly who was pushing the bed. Jonathan turned to me and showed me the IV in his arm and told me, very first thing "Don't ever take this out!" The orderly explained that when he woke up he was curious about the IV and they said it was to give him medicine without him having to taste it. He told them something like, "Can I keep it always?" Apparently the taste of medicine is way down on the list of things Jonathan likes.
Well, after a couple of days Jonathan seems to be doing well. There will be a doctor follow up on Monday. One thing is sure, even surgery didn't slow Jonathan down.
Well, here are a couple of pics of what it looked like before surgery, we may get some better before/after shots from the doctor as well.
Well, as a lot of you may know, Jonathan (now four and a half years old) was born with a duplicate digit, i.e. two thumbs on his right hand. This precipitated comments such as "Give me six" and "Do you have six fingers on your right hand? My father was killed by a six-fingered man" (From "The Princess Bride" movie).
Well, one thumb was slightly smaller, and was obviously the duplicated thumb. We spoke with a pediatric hand surgeon when Jonathan was an infant and decided to operate when Jonathan was old enough to understand and want the surgery and yet young enough that it would be before school. (He is in pre-school currently and can't hold a pencil properly or use child scissors.)
Earlier this week, Julie was talking to Jonathan and trying to understand how he was feeling about the upcoming surgery after he overheard a phone call to the surgeon. She knelt down by Jonathan and rubbed his duplicate thumb. "Jonathan, honey. Do you remember when we talked about a doctor removing this?" He looked up at Julie. "Would you still like to have two thumbs like Mom and Dad?" After a long pause, Jonathan said, "I would kind of like to keep my 'lucky thumb'-- How about he takes off one of my fingers instead!" Julie spoke of all that he could do with only one thumb and he said "that would be all right."
Jonathan was very good the morning of the surgery up until just after the anesthesiologist came, when he said "I don't want to be here anymore, let's go home." "I gotta go!" He made to get off the hospital bed where he had been making cards with stickers and paper. Well, a little distraction and about 10 minutes later he was rolled past the red tape where parents say goodbyes and off to the operating room. Everything went well with the surgery, and it only took a short while.
When they wheeled Jonathan back, he was alert and very chipper; chatting with the orderly who was pushing the bed. Jonathan turned to me and showed me the IV in his arm and told me, very first thing "Don't ever take this out!" The orderly explained that when he woke up he was curious about the IV and they said it was to give him medicine without him having to taste it. He told them something like, "Can I keep it always?" Apparently the taste of medicine is way down on the list of things Jonathan likes.
Well, after a couple of days Jonathan seems to be doing well. There will be a doctor follow up on Monday. One thing is sure, even surgery didn't slow Jonathan down.
Well, here are a couple of pics of what it looked like before surgery, we may get some better before/after shots from the doctor as well.
3 comments:
Tell Jonathan we hope he gets better soon! I'm sure he will love his new thumb. It sounds like he was really brave in surgery. I bet the nurses loved him. We miss you guys!
Your kids are so dang cute! I love how he wanted to keep his "lucky" thumb. That's how I would want it too, to wait till they understood. It's so hard to see babies in pain and they don't know why. Thanks for all the fun posts, I love to read them!
Thank you for sharing. Our son was born June 19th, 2008 and he has an extra thumb on his right hand too! Crazy. My father was born with one too. We've already met with a hand surgeon, who has been nothing but amazing. We've opted to remove the extra one around 10 months. Any thoughts or advice is welcome. You can reach me at my email account roosh9@gmail.com. Thanks for sharing!
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