Kylee's Trigger Finger

So kylee has Trigger Finger. I guess the super technical term is 'right thumb contracture' but is commonly referred to as trigger finger. What it basically is, is the tendon in her thumb has a ball in it so it can't go through the hole in the bone (picture a belt sliding through a belt loop but it can't because it has a knot in it...that's how it was explained to us.) What it basically looks like from the outside is this:


See how her thumb is bent? It's stuck like that. Hard as a rock. No matter how hard you pushed on it (which you wouldn't cause that would make you the most heartless person ever) it wouldn't budge from that position. It's been like that since about March but our pediatrician said it wasn't anything urgent and could be taken care of whenever it was convenient for us. Kylee was referred to a pediatric Orthopedist at Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake (about an hour and a half from us). The specialist was booked until just this past month so we were finally able to take her in and it just happened to work out perfectly timing wise in that it was scheduled the day after we were to return from Missouri (we flew into salt lake)!

Our pedi said it doesn't hurt her, which must be true cause she's never complained about it and she doesn't seem to notice anything's "wrong" with her. It's still a completely functional thumb-as in she uses it the same way any of us would, it just...doesn't move. Poor girl was terrified after the doc came in and tried to look at her finger. Look at her sad tear-stained face :( She sniffled for a good 15 min after he left.


And the end result: nothing. There's not a darn thing they can do about it...yet. She wasn't born with this, it's just something some kids happen to develop over the first couple years. There's nothing that she or we did to bring it on and there's nothing you can do to make it go away besides surgery-which wouldn't be performed until she was at least 3. If you do opt to go the surgery route (which would be the absolute last option-no way I'm putting my baby under if it's not absolutely necessary!) the doctor said he would wait until she was over 3 because there's a 90% chance if they develop trigger finger in one thumb they will develop it in the other before they are 3, and he only wants to have to put them out once and take care of both thumbs than take the chance that it won't develop and find out they have to perform 2 surgeries. Make sense? Long story short...we've been asked to let her be part of a study. A study on Trigger Finger in the US (first one ever) to see if they just wait it out if it will eventually go away on its own. Apparently in Korea (and another country I can't remember) a study has been done and a large percentage of the kids-in both studies-who let it go and didn't have surgery found that their trigger finger went away after 10 years. Our doctor said, "That's what we do in America. We fix things. Right away if we don't like something we fix it." He said, "Our purpose in doing this study is to ride it out for a bit. See if we just wait and don't just rush in to fix something that's not "normal", if it will eventually work out on its own." And I thought that was a good point and since she's not in any pain and it doesn't affect or limit her in anyway we figured we might as well "ride it out".

The plus side to waiting is 1. NO SURGERY 2. still has use of her thumb regardless 3. after several years if there's no improvement they can always, at any time, go in and do surgery to correct it 4. We can opt out of the study at any time and take the surgery route but at least she'll be older and I'll feel better about knocking her out and knowing she'll live to tell about it. (okay maybe that's a little dramatic but you know what I mean.) 5., 6., 7., 8., NO SURGERY

So she'll go in once a year (for as long as we live in Logan at which point we might have to go another route) and they'll check out her finger for signs of improvement or not and we'll be on our way. Simple as that. But as un-exciting as that was we did have a wonderful time in Salt Lake!

Like I said, we flew into Salt Lake on the 24th about 4:30, and since her appt. was the next morning we grabbed a hotel room a couple of miles from the hospital, unloaded our stuff and headed down to Lehi to meet our good, good, good friends Adam and Jana, their 2 kids Janie and Micheal and their new BEAUTIFUL baby boy Landon! (wow that was a really bad run on sentence...)We haven't seen them in SO long and it was so good to hang out with them for a couple hours so I could snuggle and love all over her baby. :) They are such great people. You know those kind of friends that you don't see or talk to very often but the second you get together everything just picks up right where you left off and you laugh so hard you cry and your stomach hurts, and you tell the same stories over and over and they are still as funny as they were the first time and you talk non-stop until your kids fall asleep on the couch and you can barely keep your eyes open but you still have so much to say. These are those kind of friends. You can always count on them to be the exact same hilarious, kind, laid-back people you remember from years before. We love them and miss them dearly! And we didn't get one picture with them. Notta one. That's how much fun we were having.

But our kids did fall asleep before we even pulled out of their driveway to head back to Salt lake and stayed asleep while we carried them into the hotel and laid them down perfectly, all tucked in their blankets, in the bed...


...just to find them in the morning sleeping like this:


And who doesn't love breakfast in bed?


After her appointment we grabbed some lunch at Red Robin (Yum!-I can't say red robin without hearing the song in my head) and then spent the afternoon on Temple Square.


It's the first time either Tyler or Kylee had been and while Tyler loved the little tour/video thingy the sister missionaries take you through in the Visitor's Center (God's Plan for Families) he was a little skeptical of the large statue of Christ. I LOVE being in this room. It's absolutely gorgeous and is such a great reminder of He who truly is in control of all things and helps me to remember there are so many things I don't need to try and have control over. So many things in my daily life that are unimportant and that I don't need to waste time doing or worrying about. What's important to me is my family, my children, and our goal of being together forever. That's pretty much it. Everything else is just details along the way...


The temple grounds are just beautiful with flowers everywhere! Kylee was trying to pick off every single petal off every single flower so I'd have to remind her we only use our nose to smell them not our fingers! But then the little stink she is, she would lean over as if she was going to smell them, look back at me slyly over her shoulder and then as fast as she could turn and rip a petal from the flower. Naughty, naughty little girl. :)


I LOVE THEM a million hundred thousand pieces...


...and even more than that! (somehow a simple 'I love them' doesn't seem to sum it up enough)


Then we headed over to the conference center across the street because Tyler wanted to check out the huge waterfall that cascades down the side of the building.


And that was about it. We headed home unpacked and got back to "real" life. Best life I could imagine!