Injury #2

Should I even keep track of the #?!

Our house was a disaster and totally not child proofed during the move so when we took our eyes off Gavin for about 1 minute he got into major trouble! There was a gardening "lopper" as Chris the expert calls it, in our dining room. Picture a 2 foot long tool with about 3 inch, curved blade. He cut 3 of his fingers but only 1 was major - his middle finger on his left hand. After some panic from me and some calming from Chris we got in the car to find the hospital (luckily I had seen it as part of my delivery preparation). They had to put Gavin in a restraining device (a board with Velcro straps like a back board) to give him stitches. It was very sad, but he is a trooper and even gave us a few smiles at the hospital. He was in a splint that we had to change every day between the stitches and the surgery.

He cut through to the joint which means he cut right through his tendon and if we don't have surgery he won't have a fully functioning finger and it will hang down for the rest of his life! So we went to 3 specialists and finally found one that we liked. Gavin had surgery at the Children's Hospital, which was great because it was way more fun than home! They had to completely put him under to keep him still but they took care of all of that after they took him from us so it didn't bother me much. They fixed the tendon and put a pin in his hand as an internal splint. The pin sticks out so in 6 weeks they will just pull the pin out! =O When he woke up he was really cranky and tired (since he had missed his nap for the first time in his life). So the nurses got him his own recovery room and we were able to get him to sleep for another hour+. Then he was much better and he even slept through the night that night without waking for a dose of pain medication. His hand was bandaged with something like an ace bandage.

We were supposed to keep it clean and dry for 6 days and then go in for a follow up. Well he pulled it partially off after 4 days :( He was really cranky after that so we ended up going back to Children's Hospital to have it checked out. Everything was fine and he had his follow up today. They put a splint on and bandaged it up like this again. We now have to change the dressing and wash it every day (and clean the area around the pin) for 5 weeks!