The Seidel Family Adventures: {Anna's Surgery}

In the beginning of April, Anna finally had surgery to unlock her thumb. Sometime around a year old we noticed that Anna’s right thumb was locked in position. I mentioned it to her pediatrician and he agreed it looked like trigger finger so we set up an appointment with a specialist to get it checked out. We were sent to Dr. Cullen at the Hand to Shoulder Center in Appleton and I highly recommend him – he did a great job and was wonderful with Anna – quite the patient doctor J I am very happy the surgery is behind us and even happier to report everything went great and a weeks later Anna had her follow up with Dr. Cullen and was determined to be just as good as new, with a brand new working thumb. Anna did great for the surgery and was quite a brave little girl. When we went in for her pre-op appointment, I will admit I started to get a little nervous about the whole thing as she tried to climb up my chest and then down my back when the doctor tried to listen to her heart. We got to the hospital the day of her surgery pretty early in the morning and got Anna settled in. After meeting with Dr. Cullen, the anesthesiologist and the nurse that would be with her the whole time, they gave her some medicine to mellow her out, which was by far one of the funniest things I have ever seen. By that time Anna was so out of it, I don’t even think she realized what was happening and they wheeled her back to administer the anesthesia and perform the surgery. While I was most nervous to see them put Anna under, I had no idea her coming out of the anesthesia would be the worst part. She woke up pretty scared, screaming, crying, kicking, biting and trying to rip out her IV and take off her bandage. After an hour of trying to console her, we packed up and tried to head home. Once in the car, Anna was successful at ripping off the bandage so we had to go back to get it reapplied. Turns out our little Anna is quite the fighter J It ended up that her getting it off was the best thing she could have done, once she saw the wound, she was more than happy to put the bandage back on the never let it bother her once the entire time she had to wear it, which ended up being about a week. Overall I am so happy the ordeal is over with, while her reason to have surgery wasn’t too big of a deal, it is never fun to watch your little one go through something like that. And we were only more reminded of how lucky we are, as there are some very sick kids in the world, whose families go through surgeries and hospital stays on a daily basis. Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers are with all those families and kiddos who suffer each day from illness.