Throwback Thursday

Some might be looking at this picture saying "What in the world is that?" Well "that" is what you call a polydactyly or polydactylism  (extra finger/digit so to say). When Mr. C was born he had an extra digit on each one of his little pinky fingers. When I gave birth and the nurse took him to the warmer she was a little surprised. She said to Harlan and I "Um...the baby has some little balls hanging from his fingers." All I could do is laugh. I already knew what they were. This strange little abnormal digit has popped up on all of my paternal family members. My dad had two digits like Mr. C. My brother Jacques and I had one digit. Back in the 1970's when I was born and the 80's when my brother was born the doctor's would just tie a string around the digit and it would eventually fall off. What they were doing was stopping the blood from flowing to the digit and it when then die. There was no bone in the digit just tissue. So when Mr. C was born I thought they would do the same thing. Well boy did I think wrong! The pediatrician told us we had to take Mr. C to a baby surgeon to have it surgically removed. Well once I heard that I kind of freaked out. I did not want my little week old baby having surgery. So I had to toughen up and make the appointment. I called the surgeon to schedule the appointment and they didn't have anything for weeks. I was so upset because my poor baby had these little digits on his fingers and they looked like they were going to pop off. Well when we finally got around to seeing the surgeon he got us in ASAP for the surgery. I guess I was right. He didn't want to put it off any longer because the little piece of skin that attaches them to the finger started to get thin. The next day Mr. C had the surgery done to remove the digits. He was only 3 weeks old.