Joe's fingers

Back on Dec. 26 Joe stuck 2 of his fingers in the treadmill while Pete was running. He rubbed all the skin off on the inside of his 2 fingers plus had some lovely black rubber marks on his fingers from the treadmill. We went back and forth on weather or not to take him to the ER. Pete kept ice on Joe's fingers all evening. Right after it happened, Pete turned on Spongebob and Joe stopped crying. Obviously it didn't hurt that bad if he thought spongebob was more important than crying! Anyway, I was thinking about taking him to the ER but then he fell asleep.

We kept it covered and medicated for a few days. After that we only lubed it up and covered it at night then let it dry out some during the day. He was fine and used it really with no problems. However, once it was really starting to scab over if he hit it the wrong way it would crack open and bleed.

Anyway, fast forward 6 weeks later. His middle finger would not straighten all the way out. I took him to the pedo who referred him to a hand specialist. The only pedo hand doctor apparently only is at downtown Children's Mercy hospital and works one day a week. Thankfully, my mom and Dad came up and watched Max and Sam while I took Joe and Ike to that appointment. He has a scar contracture on his middle finger. Meaning the tip does not fully extend. The surgeon said we would try a splint for 4-6 weeks. If that does not work then it will be surgery with a skin graft. I hope the splint works! He went to OT after seeing the hand surgeon. The OT made him a fancy little splint to wear at night. It puts pressure on the 2 fingers affected. I also wrap it in hydro gel they gave me.

Poor Joe! Hopefully he learned his lesson about sticking his fingers on treadmills! It could have been so much worse though.