United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi All, We are preparing for our daughter's surgery in April. She will be 4 the end of this month & would love to hear various ways people explained surgery,cast
splints to their children. We, of course have been doing P/t formally & in play but she's never questioned
her injury. I, like I'm sure all of you, want to stay positive & of course truthful yet keeping this little
one's self-esteem high!!! Our dialogue has already begun about casts & how your arm doesn't have to be broken sometimes used to make your arm stronger....THANKS

Well my learning from this week is that I should not have told Maia that this surgery would make her arm stronger. When her splint came off she had a great deal of pain and she could not move her arm (with the exception of her hand). It devastated her to the point where she didn't want to return to school. So what I learned from this is that I should have been more honest with her - should have told her that her arm needed to be repaired and it would be resting for the allotted time in the splint and then she would have to have therapy to wake it up again and get it strong again....(in kid words of course)

Before we went for this surgery, I asked the very same question and I captured the posts here
http://www.injurednewborn.com/maia/whattotell.html

hope it helps you,
francine

Also check out the TCH section - What to Expect the Day of Surgery and the TCH picture section
http://www.injurednewborn.com/maia/homepage.html