Update on Ellie's Finger

My grandaughter, Ellizabeth Mae, was born with an extra finger on her left hand.  I thought I would update you on how everything turned out.

Here are some pictures of Ellie's extra pinky finger.  As you can see it was small, had a fingernail and x-ray's revealed that it contained a "floating" bone.  This was good news because the bone was not attached to the neighboring finger which meant the surgery would be much easier.

Here is Ellie and her daddy at one of her pre-op visits with her hand surgeon.

Ellie's surgery was on October 28, 2010.  She was just over 2 months old.  Everything went perfectly!  As you can see Crystal, mommy, painted Ellies extra fingernail for her big day.  In many ways it was sad knowing we would be losing a part of her.

They sent her home with some stitches and told us that they would disolve in 10 - 14 days.  But on November 11th we noticed that her finger had swelled up and was turning red.  This was one of the danger signs the Surgeon warned us about so we took her to the Emergency Room.  The Dr.'s discussed admitting her and putting her on IV antibiotic's because they were afraid the infection would continue to spread.  We were told that her "good" pinky was in danger of amputation. 

They decided to send her home with strong antibiotics and instructions to come back if her symptoms worsened.  We couldn't believe that she was born with 6 fingers on one hand and that she might end up with four!  It was another one of those, "Really?  This can't be happening moments" that our family seems to have quite often.

Her surgeon was on vacation so Monday morning another Dr. came to the office to examine her.  After he looked at it for some time he decided that she might be allergic to the stitches!  Within minutes of removing them her finger started to look better and the swelling started going down immediately.

We took this photo a couple of hours after the stitches were removed.  It was already looking better. 

Thankfully her hand healed rapidly once the stitches were removed.  It has been 4 months since her surgery and her hand is perfect!  We can barely see a mark/scar where her finger used to be. 

We are so blessed to live in a time where things like this can be so easily fixed.  This will just be one of those stories we tell her one day.  We are so very thankful for this little girl.  She has brought so much love, peace, happiness and healing to all of us.  She is so sweet and cuddly.  She rarely cries and is content to lay on the floor staring up at her play gym and watching everybody.

Isn't she just the cutest?

Miss Ellie Mae, 6 months old