Liam’s surgery went very well. Both surgeons were pleased at the outcome. This surgery separated his two joined fingers, removed a bunch of fatty tissue (a process called de-bulking), straightened the fingers with some bone adjustments, and drilled the growth plates to stop further growth. He’s been in a cast up to his shoulder, so we won’t get to see the final results until they take off the cast and remove the pins on the 26th.

He actually did pretty well considering all of the stuff done to him. Nurses were bugging him almost hourly for the first couple of days and no amount of morphine drip was going to reduce his irritation. He surprisingly didn’t do a whole lot to try and pull out the IV, though he did get the various pulse, oxygen, and respiration sensors torn off more than a few times. The surgery was on a Wednesday and we were discharged on Saturday morning with a bottle of oxycodone (for him, not us) and a kid thrown way off his schedule. Thankfully, we didn’t have to use the oxycodone for more than a couple of days before switching off to Tylenol. He was even doing well enough to fall asleep on his own when we took a fun day out in Boston Common and got the world’s best cannoli in the North End. He’s been surprisingly adaptable too. He scoots around with the greatest of ease and can still sit up and lay down on his own. He still likes finger foods and has even tried a few new things. (The dried apricot was a triumph, I tell you.)

This isn’t the end of the surgery, though. We’ll need to go back in the fall so that they can come in on the other side of his index finger for further debulking and to see about correcting his hyperextended thumb. After that, it’s a waiting game to see what happens. His fingers could either grow at a normal rate, or they could start growing much faster. In either case, the surgery in the fall likely won’t be the last of it.

We did Liam’s pre-op appointments yesterday. It took around 4 hours for all of them and he was a trooper. We even got him to nap through all of the x-rays. Afterwards, we took him to the aquarium to look at fish. He was too tired to get very excited, but he sure did a lot of looking around. And he wasn’t cool with the manta ray getting that close to him, glass tank or not.

He slept long and deep last night, exhausted from the long day. He woke up in a good mood this morning, blissfully unaware of what his day held.

Two hours or so of surgery to go. It feels like forever.

Right now, the plan is to fly out the Saturday or Sunday before to give Liam a chance to recover from a long day of flying. We’ll be in Boston for about a week after the surgery while he recovers, then we’re going to head down to the DC area to stay with Shauna’s brother Bill. I’m probably going to fly back home not long after that and Shauna will stay with Liam until his followup 2-3 weeks later. The reason I may be coming back early is our dogs. They’ll be twitchy enough after two weeks of us being gone and really need to have someone around the house on a somewhat consistent basis. If you want to volunteer to watch them, please let us know. This doesn’t mean just to come over and feed them twice a day, but also to hang out for a bit and give the dogs some socialization. I certainly wouldn’t mind being able to stay with Shauna and Liam for the entire time.

You see, his normal nap time is between 10AM and 11AM and he usually goes down for about an hour and a half to two hours. You don’t have to be a math major to figure out that this doesn’t jive too well with a church meeting block from 11AM to 2PM. We used to be able to take him into the hall and get him to nap between blocks, but he’s outgrown the carrier and has gotten a bit pickier about where he naps.

The last time we took him to church, we had to leave before the end of sacrament meeting because he was acting up so much. The problem with sticking it out with him is that we’re basically just trying to keep Liam from freaking out and distracting everyone else in the room. One of us is always with him in the hallway trying to get him to doze just a little bit with very limited success. So what do we do about the crazy kid?

Basically, we’ve decided we have to go to church in shifts. I take a week, she takes a week, the other stays home with the kid to make sure he gets his nap. If he wakes up in time, we join the other at church. And I hope he grows out of it sometime soon.

At this point, I need to gather up Liam’s x-rays and other medical information to send out to him. After he’s had a chance to review Liam’s case thoroughly, we’ll decide about a meeting. I’m not even sure at this point if we’d just schedule the surgery, or if we’d have to go out there for a consult in person. I’ll keep you updated.

Tonight’s menu? Pureed carrots. After a 15-minute steam, I tossed them in the Vitamix with some water and ran it until smooth and slightly runny. Liam gobbled up the entire bowl that I fed him. And the cost? A mere $0.15 per container. The pre-made stuff runs about $0.50 a pop. That doesn’t sound like much, but figure that he’s eating a good four containers of food per day and that adds up. Over a year, you’re talking serious money for the convenience of not spending a whole 5 minutes a few times a week to make the stuff. Not bad, eh? And bonus: we know exactly what went into it.

So far, we’ve had success with pears, carrots, canned pumpkin (when not frozen), and a pear/pineapple blend. There’s some squash on the counter just waiting to be roasted and pureed. Maybe I’ll have to try some meats next.

When we saw a surgeon back in April, he said that he would separate Liam’s joined fingers, remove as much bulk as possible in the large digits and then he would drill the growth plates in the affected fingers to keep them from getting any longer. The biggest problem with the large fingers though is not the length. Soft tissue builds up around the fingers making them really fat and that’s what makes them less functional. Liam has trouble grabbing things with his big hand because there is just too much bulk.  When we saw the same surgeon the other day, he is now saying that he thinks we need to begin by amputating Liam’s index finger (it’s the biggest and bulkiest of the large fingers).

While looking for information online about macrodactyly, this children’s hospital in Boston had the most information. According to the description of their program, macrodactyly is something they see every day. So I’ve decided to get their opinion on Liam’s condition as well. If the experts on this condition say that Liam’s index finger has to go, then at least I’ll know I did everything I could. I filled out an online form to request an appointment the other day. I got an email back from them requesting pictures of Liam’s hand and some medical information. The hand specialist there is going to review Liam’s case and then do a phone consult before we come out since we are coming from so far away. I took some pictures of the hand today and I thought I would put them on the website for people to see. Some of you have probably never seen Liam’s hand. Some of you may have wanted to get a closer look, but didn’t want to offend, etc. Or maybe someone has just found out that their baby also has this condition and is searching the entire internet for information like I did so many months ago. In any case, here are the pictures. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

• School has been going really well. I’ve only got one more week of classroom time and then I’m out on the floor, doing all my learning on real victims clients.
• Saw Liam’s hand surgeon again and got some less-than-ideal news about how the surgeon would like to proceed. I’ll post more on this later.
• Saturday was Halloween and Liam dressed up as a cute little bumble bee. We don’t really want him eating any candy yet and we sure don’t need any, so we didn’t really trick or treat. We did take him around in his stroller to say hi to some of the people in the ward that we thought would want to see him all dressed up though.

First day of school

I totally look like someone that could do your hair, am I right? We haven’t gotten to hair yet though, so I TOTALLY FOOLED YOU. I did, however get to learn all about waxing, tinting eyebrows and eyelashes, facials, and AHA chemical peels. The first week of school was lots of fun. I seriously get ready for school around noon and then spend the rest of the day watching the clock until it’s time to go to school because I’m so excited to go.

It’s a little bit sad that Liam is already in bed when I get home. So I usually have to hop onto Facebook before I go to bed to stare at all the pictures I’ve got of him on there. Here’s a recent one for any of you that are not on Facebook:

Love that boy

I think it makes the time that we do have together so much better though. And Jesse said he could tell the difference in my mood right away. He said I seem much happier. It feels good to be a person sometimes and not just a mom.

Thursday was my birthday. I turned 31 years old. Since I was in school on Thursday, we got a sitter on Friday (Thanks, Kristy!) and went out to dinner and a movie. I got some lovely roses and Jesse “helped” Liam pick out a card for me. Thirty was a good year for me and so far thirty-one is looking good, too.

‘Twas a good week. Both in terms of sticking to my aforementioned new goals AND in general. Amazing how that sort of goes together, eh?

I reconnected the CRAP out of people. I went from basically not communicating with a single soul besides my 8-month-old and my husband to going out with a friend to the bakery and shopping, hanging out with someone I haven’t seen in more than a year and getting mildly CRAFTY… even having a small get together at the house on Saturday (thanks to all that came).

In terms of my health, I have not yet made any changes to my eating (which I need to), but I did go to the doctor about my knee. He, in turn, sent me to a physical therapist who believes I may just have some tendonitis in my knee. I’m a little skeptical about having tendonitis for SEVEN YEARS, but the exercises she’s prescribed seem to be helping… for now. I also visited a gym and will be trying out their water aerobics class in the morning to see if I like it (I’ve been to water aerobics before, just wondering if I like their teacher, music, etc). I’m also considering getting a bike. Jesse just got a free one from a friend he helped move and my cousin, Heather, has been writing about her biking and making me think that it might actually be a fun family activity. Too bad I didn’t figure this out sooner in the year. But I’m not going to let that be an excuse to put it off until next year. The weather is beautiful now and the scenery is GORGEOUS. We live in such a beautiful place.

I’ve started reading a book, The Price We Paid. My mom read it, loved it, and then bought me a copy. I’m only a few chapters in so far, so I’ll keep you posted. So far, I’m really looking forward to making the pioneer stories a little more real by knowing more about what they went through.

I have been out of the house more, though I can’t really say I’ve been exploring exactly. Besides all of the things mentioned earlier, we’ve been to parks and taken walks around the neighborhood. I’ve made a point to get out of the house at least once per day. I’m not proud to admit it, but there have been times since Liam’s birth where I’ve gone weeks without so much as glancing out the window at the world that exists beyond my walls. So this has been good.

On Saturday, Jesse had plans to do some volunteering for some geek organization. Normally, I would have used that as an excuse as to why I couldn’t go out. Instead, I packed up the kid and we went to the farmer’s market by ourselves. It was WONDERFUL. We got there a little late, so there wasn’t really time to walk around the whole park. Instead, I grabbed some lunch from my favorite taco stand at the market and found a great spot under some trees to set up our blanket and relax. Liam had fun looking up at the trees while I ate and then a band came and played, so we stayed a little longer. The music was fantastic… until the singer began to “sing”. He was off-key most of the time and at one point forgot the words to his own music and tried to hide it by kind of mumbling to the music. Then he just started laughing (as did the rest of us). There was also a young girl there (I think she was “with the band”) with a whole bunch of hoola hoops. They were laid out on the lawn and tons of kids were hoola hooping to the music. It was awesome.

Liam loved the music (he doesn’t care that the singer is off-key), but his favorite part seemed to be the dried leaf I found next to us. I tickled him with it for a little while then handed it to him. That kept him occupied for a good half hour.

Liam mesmorized by a dried leaf

By the time I finished my pear and ricotta danish (mmmm!), the farmer’s market was pretty much over. We took the long way back to our car so we could kind of glance at all the booths as everyone was cleaning and closing for the day. I’m so glad I didn’t stay home just because no one else was going with me. It was kind of a bonding day… just me and my son. Experiencing new things together, delighting in the ordinary. I enjoyed every bit of it and I know these moments are precious and few.

As for school, I start TOMORROW. Yep… when I have a good idea, it just seems silly to wait (like when Jesse and I got married!). So tomorrow my journey begins at Eschalon Edge Academy. I’ll be going to school M-Th, 5pm to 10pm and 9am to 5pm on Saturdays. Attendance is pretty strict so that will make my regular trips home rather difficult. That’s really the biggest drawback for me. But… it’s a year and a half of my life. Small price to pay for the opportunity to do something completely different and interesting (how in the world did I ever get into PAYROLL, for heavenssake!) Wish me luck!