catching you up

Howdy. I have a minute so I thought I'd catch you up on what's been going on here. In my last post, I mentioned that we've seen a bevy of doctors and whatnot over the last few weeks. For those of you who don't know, Pete was born with some serious orthopedic issues in his left arm. Long story short, he's missing a few bones in his arm and hand, and he does not have an elbow. We've now met with 2 different orthopedic specialists at 2 different hospitals, and they've both said basically the same thing...Pete's "thumb" as it exists now (which has only a teeny tiny bone that is not attached to any other bones) will be removed an one of his other digits, likely his index finger, will be moved to serve as a thumb. We're doing some exercises with his ring finger and pinkie to increase movement and dexterity there. He will have a fairly functional left hand. His elbow, on the other hand, did not bring such great news. Both doctors agree that he does not have the muscle/ligament/tendon structure to create a functional elbow. This has been hard to swallow in this modern age of knee replacements. But both doctors are in agreement that Pete will have few physical limitations. They're both adamant that he'll play sports, and be able to use his left arm with lots of success.

We're now going to bi-weekly physical and occupational therapy. The primary goal at this young age is to increase sensory awareness. You know, like, "Hey Pete, this is your arm. This is how it moves. You should try that sometime." As he grows, his therapy will change. And the doctors are confident that he'll reach his developmental milestones (rolling over, crawling, etc...) on time. It won't like like when you or I did it, but he'll make it work for him.

We're amazed at the resilience of this little boy, and I'm excited to see him blow my expectations out of the water. Thanks for all the prayers and kind thoughts during the last few weeks~