stinkymouse: Children's Hospital

On Tuesday we went to Children's Hospital in Seattle. Our appointment was at 8:00 in the morning. MapQuest says it should take an hour and 33 minutes to get from our house to Children's Hospital. We left our house at 5:30 AM and barely made it. I do not envy Seattle commuters! We stopped in Marysville on our way to pick up my mom. She has been very involved in the care our nephew Devon has received at Children's Hospital so it was nice to have her along. We didn't have to think about driving directions or parking, etc.; made the trip MUCH easer.

This was a preliminary visit with Dr. Hanel to discuss Hui-Hui's hand. A physician's assistant gave Hui-Hui a general exam, which he was NOT happy about. He was quite distressed over being undressed in a clinical setting, but he calmed down by the time Dr. Hanel came in to see him.

I really liked Dr. Hanel. He has a calm, present, and gentle manner. He looked at Hui-Hui's hand and explained that we had a couple of options:
1) Do Nothing
2) Surgery

Before we went in, I was worried the doctor would immediately advocate for surgery, and as the physician's assistant looked at Hui-Hui, she said that he would probably want to straighten the wrist and build a thumb out of his forefinger. She said this as though it were a forgone conclusion. But When Dr. Hanel looked at him, he said it wasn't that obvious of a choice. If both of his hands were affected it would be a much more simple decision to want to create an opposable thumb. In that Hui-Hui's right hand is normal the need isn't as clear. Dr. Hanel also told us about a recent study of children who have had the procedure and ones who have not, and that the effect on functionality wasn't especially clear. For Hui-Hui, the decision to have this done is also complicated because his index finger doesn't flex properly, and the "quality" of this finger
effects the success of the operation.

The procedure of building a thumb out of a forefinger is called "pollicization". There is a good newspaper article which profiles Dr. Hanel and explains the procedure you can read HERE.

So we left the visit with an appointment to return in three months to discuss it again. Dr. Hanel asked us to think about what we want to do, but he did not give us a clear recommendation, as it's not a clear-cut case. He did have an OT come in and make a splint for Hui-Hui to wear on his hand at night. The splint holds his hand in an extended position to help stretch tendons and soft tissue. This will make surgery easier if we decide to go that route. Hui-Hui did not like getting the splint made. It wasn't really invasive, but the whole process was overwhelming for him. While we waited for the splint to be finished Gramma took Hui-Hui out of the exam room for a little walk around the hallways. This was very sweet, as it let her have an opportunity to connect with her new grandson, she was able to be there for him as a source of comfort in a stressful situation. Tina and I finished up with the OT then went to catch up with Hui-Hui and Gramma out in the lobby where they had gone to look at the fish tank. As we headed down the hall we could hear my Mom talking with someone and we saw a little asian girl standing in the lobby. It was Aimee Oppliger! We met Aimee's parents in Beijing, and Aimee in Guangzhou. They live near my sister outside of Marysville and adopted Aimee through our agency, CHI. Aimee was very interested in seeing Hui-Hui again, though Hui-Hui wasn't feeling very social after all he'd been through in the exam room. Aimee has fused fingers and was seeing Dr. Hanel as well. We were all just stunned that we had appointments on the very same morning!

Afterwards we went to Gramma's house for lunch. This was our first one-on-one visit with Gramma, and Hui-Hui really had a chance to connect with her.

Yes, that's Dori in the fish tank, Nemo was in there too.

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