Isaiah 7.17 : Updates, etc.

So I'm a day late with the finger and toe pictures, but click on the picture and you'll go to the Picasa site to see them in all their current glory. Still a little scabby and surgical, but they'll clean up nicely in a few weeks!

I swore I dashed off a quick post the other day, but I must not have. Wednesday night we took off his arm casts and got to see his 10 fingers. They're still pretty swollen and scabby, but all the grafts took and things look good. His right hand is shaped almost as if he's gripping an imaginary golf ball in his hand whereas his left hand is a little flatter seeming. It's too early to tell how well they will work, but once we're done with dressing changes we'll be able to start trying to get him to grip more things. He's already holding his own bottle again and manipulating things up to his mouth with both hands which is great. He's still not wanting to stand up much and doing the 'air sit' when we pick him up and he's still holding out his legs as if he were sitting on a magic carpet. He's pretty strong because he can do that for a good while. We drove up to Chattanooga yesterday. We followed my Mom up there on Friday on her way back hom...

So the leg casts are off and his ten little toes look great. There was very little gunk this time compared to last time and the skin grafts are healing well. I'm just excited to do the 'this little piggy' stuff. We've started in on the dressing changes and have moved up taking off the arm casts to tomorrow since my sister leaves for Minnesota tomorrow night and we wanted her to be able to see all ten of his fingers. Once those are off I'll have pictures of his hands and feet posted by the end of this weekend for all to see. They're still a little raw looking, but we just need to share!

Thought I'd sneak this in before bed since I won't want to do it early tommorrow before I head back to the hospital. Isaiah is doing pretty good. His pain seems to be managed pretty well, its more the frustration with the casts and his headband and IV tap in the head. The prelim from the ECHO on his heart is a negative on the murmur, or at least they said all looks normal on first glance. The cardiologist is going to take a closer look and be in the room first thing in the morning. Dr. Fearon showed us the surgical pictures of his fingers and toes and they looked great. It was just awesome to see 5 fingers on each hand. It makes me cry happy tears just thinking about it. We only had to wait 378 days to see them. He also said once he's all healed up in the hands we should try to get the head surgery taken care of before the end of the year and that that would most likely be the last surgery for five years or so!!! Anyways, a good note to go to sleep on.

Isaiah got out of surgery today at about 12:30 cst and got through it all fairly well. He now has 10 fingers and 10 toes! They're gift wrapped in some blue casts and we'll get to see them in person for the first time in about three weeks unless he pulls a Houdini act again. The new pulse ox (SPO2) sensor worked great and the nurses seem to like it other than it only works with the newest readers which not all the rooms have yet so the vendor had to set up something special in our room so it reads into the central monitor computer the nurses can see at their base station. He didn't seem to react well to the anesthetic gas today. First he started trying to chew the mask when Dr. Blakeley started administering it and then his Blood pressure and heart rate would drop some so they ended up using more narcotics than last time so he's been sleeping pretty soundly since getting out of the OR. When the heart rate dropped the anesthesiologist noticed that it sounded like his ...

So surgery went well. Rachel and I spoke with Dr. Fearon briefly after the surgery and got to see some quick pictures of what Isaiah has hidden beneath his casts. We've got 6 fingers and 6 toes right now and it sounded like Dr. F said that it looks good for getting 10&10 with the second stage of surgery in 12 weeks. We got to go back into the recovery room at about 12:15 and despite being a bit crabby Isaiah looks pretty good. His face is a bit swollen so he's sleeping off the pain killers with his eyes slightly open, but he's breathing fine. He's got casts up almost to his shoulders on his arms and almost all the way up to his groin on his legs and big puffy padding around the casts right now so he doesn't whack himself too badly. As Dr Fearon puts it, he kind of looks like those big wheel bikes from the 80's with his big blue arm casts. I'm sure he'll be crabby when he wakes up more and probably in a good amount of pain too, but we're happy t...

So the appointments yesterday went well. I apparently fell asleep at 8:30 last night, but since we had to get up at 4am again today it was probably for the best so I can have some energy tonight. Isaiah's in for surgery right now. He got his first bit of 'goofy juice' (Versaid) which loosens him up a bit and helps prevent the separation anxiety. He started singing to Rachel and me in the holding area before surgery. It was so ET like with his little singing voice and glowing red light from the Pulse Ox sensor. He's already got his tubes in his ears and Dr. Peters is sending off the fluid he had in the left ear since birth to the lab to see if it's anything we need to keep an eye on and get some antibiodics for. They've just started the 5-5.5 hr surgery on his finger and toe separations here a little before 8am CST. I'll try to get a post up ASAP as soon as he's out.