Finger Freedom

Anna's arm cast is finally off! She still has to wear a dressing on it for 10 days until it is completely healed, but it's sooo nice to not have to get whacked in the face every time I hold her.

The day before her arm cast removal, I took a few videos of Anna getting around with her casts. I want to remember how far she has come and how much she had adapted by the end of the four weeks. Here's a short video of her standing, cruising, and climbing down. She became adept at getting up and down with both casts within the last week or so.



Ben took this trip to Greenville solo. For many reasons, including the opportunity to relieve some of the travel burden by travelling with Shr*ners transportation, we needed to split up the next two trips. I knew I would have to go solo for the overnight stay when Anna goes under anesthesia to have her leg cast removed, so Ben took her on this trip to give me a break. The trips are exhausting and emotionally draining. It's hard to see Anna going through the processes each trip involves. We both felt like we only had enough emotional stamina to take the reins for one trip.

He said it was a good thing I wasn't there. Anna was scared when they took off the cast, but became pretty traumatized when she saw her fingers for the first time. I'm not sure if she was scared because of the scabs and stitches, because they were unrecognizable, or what. She pretty much lost it and was inconsolable for a full hour, crying each time she looked at her hand. Finally the nurse thought to go ahead and dress up the fingers. Once they were covered she was able to calm down. When Ben relayed this story to me, I burst into tears. I didn't think Anna would be so self-aware. I thought she would be thrilled to have the use of her hand back. Obviously, she was very disturbed by what she saw. This has made me think a little bit more about her leg cast removal. I thought she wouldn't even remember what it was like before, that she wouldn't think anything of it. But now I realize that it might be quite traumatic for her to see her footless leg for the first time.

During the surgery they separated the fused skin between her fingers and then used skin and tissue from her amputated foot to graft on to the side of the finger that needed it. In terms of appearance, the fingers will look better and better with time. From far away, they look pretty good.

Anna looking at her fingers while we change the dressing.

It was hard to get a close up of her hand because she kept moving around. This was the best I could do.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post- you all gave some great ideas. I'll give an update on at some point.