Check Up

 Things are getting back to normal. Thankfully, Sidney has avoided the preschool sad pad (timeout). I started thinking about my tiny fighter. If Sidney is disgruntled, or wronged by another child, she takes care of business. She doesn’t have the capacity to tattle. It’s instinctual, but we haven’t experienced it, outside of friends and family. School is a new opportunity for behaviors to arise. We are talking a lot about the appropriate way to respond if someone is bothering her or she is mad. Like everything else, in parenting, it’s a delicate balance. We don’t want her to become a doormat.  This spunkiness is what gets her through different challenges, both physical and emotional.

We have checkups this week. Our hand surgeon will check both hands and see what, if anything, changed over the past year. Sidney has two fully formed hands with three fingers on each, including thumbs. Her right hand was webbed (syndactyly) at birth with the middle finger and pinky finger impacted. Her first surgery, in January of 2010, worked to reconstruct the area, separating the fingers. A skin graft was used with a donor site from the hip. Sensation and getting used to the feeling of putting something between her fingers was a huge hurdle. Four months later, we tackled the left hand. Not only was there syndactyly (webbing), there were issues with her growth plate on her middle finger. It was in the shape of the letter C, allowing the finger to grow wider instead of longer at the base. A small graft was required for this procedure with a donor site from her upper arm, leaving a small scar the size of a mosquito bite. Both surgeries took about six weeks for recovery, and removal from the cast, then another six weeks with a splint. 

What's that under the cabinet....ok, don't look too closely!

 Tomorrow is a visit to the hand surgeon, and later in the morning, we will visit her orthopedist. Her orthopedist will check on her leg. She is also missing the fibula bone in the back of her right leg. It doesn’t impact walking, running, jumping, climbing (believe me it doesn’t impact climbing J ), or functioning as a normal kid. She has a lift in her shoe to compensate for the difference in length. And no, they aren’t ugly orthopedic shoes. We purchase and an orthopedist in the area cuts the soul in half, placing an insert inside. So, it’s the same shoe just higher and a smaller size. Patients with fibular hemimelia are typically missing bones and toes in the foot. Sidney has a perfectly formed left foot, missing a toe. 

Whew! That’s a lot of medical information. Are you still awake? Like I tell everyone, it’s nothing in our daily life. Outside of the first year, when doctors attempt to unravel the mystery, and checkups like tomorrow, we don’t go to the doctor any more often than anyone else. In fact, her immunity is super. She had a cold this week, starting Monday, and it’s almost gone. This might sound like an odd comment, but we couldn’t be happier with her special need. Not happy, because she has to contend with a special need, but because, it’s so, incredibly manageable. She’s just missing a couple of digits and a bone. Pardon the phrase, but as Tom says “big frickin whoopty do."