hi monique, thanks heaps for your story. yep, DD had her op on friday so 3 days ago. it wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be. i was able to go in while they put the mask on her (that was the worst bit and having to walk away). it only took about an hour and then they called and asked us to go to the recovery room because she had woken up quite distressed. she kept ripping at her bandage and just crying. she settled within 40mins and was fine after that. she had a bit of panadol, something stronger with codene in it and then some nurofen at home and she was fine with out pain relief from the second day.
it is on her left hand which is her writing hand so she is having trouble doing things like eating, toileting, drawing etc but she is coping with it well. they bandaged her whole hand up which i wasnt expecting. we have to go back in 10 days to get the dressing off and to inspect it. i hope it has worked.
do you know if there will be any physio involved? no one seems to be able to tell me. the doctor didnt even come and speak to us after the op and the nurses didnt seem to know anything specific, so we are assuming it all went well.
We had no physio, don't forget at the age your daughter is and mine was they are always on the go and will use that hand regardless of discomfort. It is when we get older that we tend to guard ourselves.
I found it funny that we were given a bottle of painstop (at our insistence) but nothing to replace the wrapping once it got dirty, which was very quickly!!
I found a good way to keep the area clean is to use that clear sticky plaster. I cannot think of the name. You buy it at a chemist on a roll of about a metre and then just cut some off. It is easy to mold around the thumb etc. Just put a piece of dressing over the stitches and secure with the plastic plaster.
She will probably like having a fuss made for bathtime, having her arm wrapped up in several plastic bags!! I used the baby bath in the big bath for Jemma.
I am just now wondering how to proceed with Jemma. I have not been happy with her right thumb at all (the left one which was so much worse is brilliant) Should I go back to the original orthopaedic surgeon (who doesn't specialise in children by the way) or go elsewhere??
i know what you mean about it getting dirty! it looks disgusting! LOL i'm not sure getting the clear plastic dressing would work for us because her whole fist is bandaged up, it looks like a little stump on the end of her arm! or do you mean once they take that initial bandage off they put on another one over the thumb only?
i think you should go back to the orthopaedic surgeon who did the first surgery because he will have an idea of what he did, why it hasnt worked properly and if there he should go and re-do it. but then if you dont get sufficient advice or anything from him then i think you should go to a childrens one. you would think it would have worked hey. i will come in and tell you if hannahs is straightened out properly when we get the bandage off next tuesday! :-)
quote "or do you mean once they take that initial bandage off they put on another one over the thumb only?"
With Jemma her bandage got so dirty that we took it all off. We then noticed that the gauze over the actual cut areas were very loose. That's when we replaced those with the plastic see through plasters. We did that several times from the first couple of days after surgery until we took her back for the check up.
I will ring up to make an appointment today for her.
Monique
Last edited by Astrolady; July 16th, 2009 at 08:20 PM.
hannah complained of having a sore thumb 'inside' this morning. she hasnt mentioned it again since then.. they said to bring her in if she is complaining of it getting sore but i dont think she is in agony and it musnt be constant cause she only mentioned it once. did anything similar happen with your DDs.?
Jemma's thumbs were most 'sore' when we were changing the bandages and she could see the stitches or the cuts. Apart from that she was absolutely amazing, I didn't hear much about it from her at all.
got bandage off today and hannah cracked it when she saw the stitches! she said it was hurting but i think she just freaked out by seeing the stitches in her thumb. its still in the bent position but it can be manipulated to straighten. she is still going around doing things one handed cause she has been used to doing it with the bandaged hand. LOL i hope after the stitches fall out her thumb is fully straightened.
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