Thumb Update

So, Lincoln's burn has really been a total nightmare. It seems that all evil forces combined to make the experience as bad as possible. After taking him to the pediatrician intially, she told us not to pop the blister and just let it run it's course. Does she have children? cause there is no way that that blister wasn't going to pop. It was SO huge and on his hand of all places. Those hands go everywhere. Needless to say, a day later it popped. I tried to leave the skin on it to protect it and then put a bandage over it, but then the next day when I took the bandage off, half the skin came with it. ARG!!! So then I had to clip the skin off. It was just a bloody mess. Poor little guy. We had to give him a bottle while I operated. Now I had to worry about it getting infected. I tried bandaging it a million different ways and he'd always seem to get it off (I think his middle name should have been Houdini) and/or totally soaked. Finally I figured out the best way to bandage it, but really it needed to be exposed to the air to heal and if the moisture contained in the bandage wasn't enough, add on top of that an endless supply of baby slobber. So 2 plus weeks later, it was still a bloody mess and didn't even look close to healing so I took him back to the peditrician and she said that it really wasn't looking good. She said that wounds that don't heal within two weeks can cause scarring that is bad enough that it could inhibit the range of motion of his thumb. That's not what I wanted to hear. She ended up referring me to a plastic surgeon which sounded a little extreme, but I was willing to do anything to get that little thumb to heal.

It was really kind of strange to go to a plastic surgeon's office with my baby. We were surrounded by before and after pictures of various body parts that should have clothes on them but didn't. There were women with bandages all over their faces coming out of the office that looked just downright scary. I really would have rather not gone there, but I didn't have too many other options. Anyway, the doctor's English was really not good (although much better than my Korean), but good enough to get the job done. He told me that Lincoln was going to have to have laser therapy. LASER THERAPY??? That sounded really serious and expensive. We went into another room and they had me set Lincoln on the end of a bed. They brought this orange glowing light over and put his thumb under it for 5 minutes. Try holding a 1 year old still for 5 minutes. Yeah right. I wanted to set him on my lap, but was worried that the radiation might not be great for baby #2, so it was a struggle. After laser therapy, he put some ointment on it, wrapped it up, told me to come back in 2 days, and charged me $10. TEN DOLLARS??? What a steal!! I was prepared to fork over a small fortune.

Two days later, we came back and the wound had dried up and closed like magic. It really was amazing. I read more about laser therapy for burn wounds on the internet and it said that it's still considered experimental but supposedly helps with circulation, pain, cell regeneration, etc. etc. I am a believer! So now, he doesn't need a bandage anymore. His thumb (as seen in the above picture) still looks pretty awful. Even though only one side was burned, the skin on his entire thumb all died and fell off due to being bandaged for so long. But it is definitely on the mend.

This was the short story long, but this situation has really caused a lot of drama and tears (both mine and Lincoln's). I've been really worried about his thumb not healing and am so relieved that it has healed as much as it has. Yay for plastic surgeons! Never thought I'd say that.