Hayden's Surgery

Today was the big day for Hayden's surgery! For those of you that didn't know, Hayden was born with what is called partial syndactyly. It is the partial webbing of the fingers. Pretty much, his webbing didn't separate like it should have when he was developing. We met with an Orthopaedic surgeon from Children's National earlier this year, and found out he could have the procedure done to "divide" the fingers after he was one.

We got to the hospital this morning about 7:30am and got checked in. They called us back to the pediatric surgery center a little after 8 and we got Hayden all dressed and ready to go.

Looking quite cute in his surgery shirt and pants

Watching TV with Daddy to pass the time

After meeting with the surgical nurse, the anesthesiologist, and getting him all weighed and measured, we were ready to head back to a prep room. He enjoyed playing around and trying to climb up the bed!

A little after 9 his surgeon, Dr. Hattwick, met with us and got the last prep details finished. When she was checking his hands and marking the correct one, she let us know that since his left hand wasn't as bad as his right that we could put that one on the back burner for a while and see how he does with it. We both looked at each other and said, "What?!" She thought she had mentioned it too us before, but apparently he has a very mild partial syndactyly in the exact same spot on his left hand. We had never even noticed it! We are thinking that it has become more prevalent as he has grown, or we are keenly observant parents... 

Anyway, I was able to go back with him to the OR until he was asleep, which I originally thought I wasn't going to do (I was afraid I'd have a meltdown), and then waited with Darren in the waiting room until a little after 11am.

Darren had just gone to get lunch when Dr. Hattwick came out and told us that everything went great! There was actually enough skin available that they didn't have to take grafts from his elbow, like originally planned. She showed us pictures of everything she did (quite gross I might add), and let us know that she noticed that the slope of the space between his index and his middle finger is kinda non-existent and might need to be fixed at some point. But, another thing we can put on the back burner and see how he develops...fun!

Darren got back before she left and so she rehashed it all for him too. Right after she left we were able to go back to the recovery area and be with Hayden again. Darren packed up our food while I hurried back, and met us just a few minutes later.

He had a pretty hard time coming out of the anesthesia. When we got to him he was pretty fussy and not wanting to eat/drink anything. We gave him his pacifier and he fell asleep for about another hour, which the nurse said was actually really great. 

His cast is quite the sight. She put tons of padding around his hand to protect all of the stitches, so it's almost completely closed and about the size of a softball. We're going to have to do some interesting things to his clothes to make them fit for the next month...

He's got quite the club!

When we got ready to head home Hayden was still not acting like his normal self, and actually fell asleep for a few minutes in his car seat! This kid NEVER does that.

Now that we're home, and he's gotten some goldfish crackers to eat (the first thing since dinner yesterday) he's becoming more himself and actually walking/running around like normal. It took him a few minutes to perfect standing up with the extra weight of his cast, but he seems to be handling it like a champ.

Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers today, we really appreciate them all!