As soon as I opened the door, her thumb came out and she found instant relief. The tears quickly came to an end and she said she was fine and wanted to keep playing with sister. I on the other hand was a little concerned. I was checking out her hand to discover this is what her thumb looked like:
She could not straighten it. She said it didn't hurt but something was obviously wrong. After consulting with my Grandma, who was the only one here at the time, we called daddy to tell him the news and that we needed to go get it x-rayed to see what was wrong. Daddy rushed home, taped it up like a good eagle scout would and off we went to a dear friend, Tracy Hoyt, who is a chiropractor.
Of course as her mother I'm instantly on top of it because I don't want her to be self conscious her entire life because of a bent thumb. Her dad, on the other hand, thought it wasn't a big deal. He thought nobody would notice and it doesn't even hurt her. Occassionally she could get it straight but eventually it would go bent again. But he agreed to go see the specialist.
After much trouble finding a pediatric orthopedic who could get her in within the month, we finally got an appointment and headed down to san diego as a family. In the meantime we kept her thumb in a splint day and night. The girl was a champ about keeping it on but it wasn't very good about staying on because her thumb is so small. So we made our own splint out of popsicles sticks and tape that stayed on longer but gave her blisters :(
So we finally make it to the Dr. He checks it out and says it is trigger thumb but asks if we had ever noticed her thumb this way before the door incident. We said, "No", it's been like this since the door. He proceeded to inform us that trigger thumb is usually genetic but can be caused by a trauma as well (like the door incident). He said he can correct it with surgery but most of the time it heals on its own. He also said time is no problem- he can ALWAYS fix it if it doesn't correct on it's own. He suggested we give it about 6 weeks to see how it does with no more splint. BEST NEWS EVER! We were thrilled. The last thing we wanted was for our little 3 year old to undergo surgery.
Here is the kicker...
just a few weeks ago as I was laying in bed holding my hubby's hand and praying for relief from my nausea he says to me, "Do you know that Maylee has a trigger thumb too!?" I said, "WHAT!?!" He proceeded to tell me that he and my mom discovered that Maylee's thumb is EXACTLY like Brooklynn's but on the opposite hand (B's is on her right hand and Maylee's is on her left). I was shocked. The next day, my mom brought Maylee to me in bed again to show me. I couldn't believe it. Sure enough the same thing!
I guess maybe B's thumb had been like that before the door incident like the pediatric orthopedic had asked, and we just missed it- never noticed it. Somehow Paul and I have passed on some genetic trigger thumb to both our girls! This news means both of their thumbs should heal on their own with time. This story still makes me laugh.
Brooklynn now gets so excited to show us when her thumb is straight!
