Part Three — Reid’s Polydactyly Reconstruction

We had our post-op appointment last week and I went solo with all 3 kids. You can imagine the comical event that that was. I promised 100 things for listening ears and quiet voices. I packed books and snacks. I tried to time naps perfectly. And, I fueled our trip with a salted caramel frappe from one of my favorite coffee stands. I even shared with Jem because that girl has such a taste for coffee :) The day progressed with few hiccups and hankfully made it home before traffic set in.

That wasn’t all the news though. The best news came from Dr. Hanel …

We anticipated that Reid would need a cast for a minimum of 4 weeks. This post-op appointment was on day 13. They used a saw to take off his cast (not too traumatic thanks to baby headphones!) and underneath all the plaster and gauze his incision looked AMAZING! Pink and a little raw, but healing beautifully. Much better than I think any of us expected.

After our fiasco keeping a cast on, Dr. Hanel felt that Reid’s thumb had healed sufficiently enough to forgo another cast. YAY! 

My sweet little man shook his arm over and over, happy that the weight of his cast was gone. He babbled much of the way home and then we all crashed for a nap. What a morning! A happy, happy morning! I had totally prepared for another long stretch with a baby in a cast, but praise the Lord, we were cast free and done with this saga! Reid had become so adept at crawling with his cast that it took him a good day to re-learn how to crawl without his peg arm. But, all in all, he’s back in action and I no longer have to worry about being bopped by a hard cast!

After Max’s cast was off, that was the end of his appointments, but Reid is part of a special polydactyly study so we have a few more follow ups. He’ll have x-rays to check how everything looks internally and Dr. Hanel will make note of his healing. We had such a wonderful experience at Seattle Children’s, I mean, I wish we never would have had to go, but, for what is was, I feel so blessed. It couldn’t have been better and I’m thanking God that this surgery is behind us.

Read part one and part two of our experience with Reid’s polydactyly.