Post-Op

A little more than 24 hours ago, Skip and I were sitting in the surgical waiting room at CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, for those not from around here) waiting for news of our little girl's status in surgery. And, while there were really hard-working, amazing people circulating the room frequently to give families updates on their little loved ones, the updates couldn't come fast enough for me, and I adopted this completely ADD-like mini-habit of looking up from my laptop screen every six seconds, then over to my beloved husband, then back at my screen, and then I would say, "it's been too long," or "I'm really getting nervous." Because when your child is in surgery, no matter what that surgery is, time is beyond slow.  It just stops.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Charlotte was born with a crazy right hand. No, seriously. It's nuts. I wrote a teensy bit about it here when she was six months old, but never really elaborated for no reason other than I just never got around to it. So here's the skinny: her right index finger (digit 2) is crooked. That is called clinodactyly. Her middle and ring fingers (digits 3 and 4) on that same hand were webbed up until yesterday. That's syndactyly, for those of you studying Greek. And finally, her middle finger is proportionally larger to all of the other fingers on hand.  That's macrodactyly. Charlotte has the trifecta of "dactylys" on one hand.  Rockstar.

The clinodactyly has straightened somewhat since her birth, and there is no plan or need to address that surgically. Same for her big finger. Nothing they can or should do with that. And there is a perverse part of my brain that finds humor in the fact that it is her middle finger that is so huge. Because I know someday she'll need to flip someone off. They will surely notice.

But on to the syndactyly. The one thing that required surgical correction. And when I say required, I suppose I'm stretching the meaning a bit, since she could have gone through the whole of her life perfectly healthfully with her middle and ring fingers webbed, and probably been perfectly happy. But given that she's a female, and given what we know of girls and the significant degree of crap they already have to manage through to make it out on the woman side of their development with their sanity intact, and given that it's her ring finger, and given that I wanted to ensure her full access to flip people off with her huge middle finger as much as she ever could want or need, we decided to proceed with the surgery, which has been scheduled for the better part of the last seven months.

Her surgeon, we were told, is THE pediatric hand guy. For the rest of my life, I will never forget our first consultation with him. Charlotte was barely two weeks old, and we were sitting in the examining room in CHOP's orthopedic unit, and in walked Dr. Benjamin Chang. And this man is a presence in a room. He doesn't really walk in - he sort of glides. And here he is, in all of his credentialed glory sitting in front of us discussing Charlotte's two-week old hand and the degree of her syndactyly (minor), and how it is only soft tissue involvement and no bone (a good thing). And in the context of discussing the actual procedure to correct it, my lovely, wonderful, extremely intelligent, very educated, worldly, traveled, did I mention lovely, husband says, "oh, so you just do a little snip snip and it's fine."

To which the uber-crendentialed, Harvard Educated, gliding-not-walking-skin-like-silk Benjamin Chang, M.D. replied, "Well, it's a little more complicated than that."

And I wished a giant hole would form in the examining room floor into which I could jump.

Fast forward twelve months. And yesterday, into the able and uber-credentialed Benjamin Chang's hands, I entrusted my baby girl. And she had her little fingers separated. And everything was okay.

Sure, we had some moments that were scary. There were some tears (mine only). There is a giant bright pink cast that is so bright I'm wondering what the hell we were thinking when we picked that color. There were the few moments before her surgery, after she had the "giggle juice" on board where I got to see my one-year old daughter completely hammered (and, may I say, a drunk baby is a funny baby). And through it all, the able and gliding Benjamin Chang and his team of wonderful doctors and nurses took exquisite care of our little girl. And she's healthy and here.

During her surgery yesterday, while we were waiting, I received an email from my mother containing a prayer that Alex had said for Charlotte. She captured it for us to read. It pretty much sums up any feelings I could express about the day.

Dear Charlotte - be still. The doctor will fix you good and decent.


He did. And we are grateful.