Monday, prior to Zak's surgery, he sought a second surgical opinion at the University of Utah. The surgeon wholly supported the need for amputation of nearly half of Zak's finger so the surgery went as scheduled Tuesday morning. Belen and I were there with him and took some final pictures as we said farewell to the finger that had faithfully submitted to Zaks will until recent months.
Belen giving her daddy some extra cuddles before his surgery.
Bye, Bye finger.
The doctor said that Zak's bone was just "mush" and removing it was absolutely necessary. We hope the surgeon was able to remove all of the infected bone and Zak will have a full and complete recovery.
Today we were able to remove the bandages for the first time to see the surgeons handiwork.
We had to saturate the dressing with sterile saline
because of all the dried blood.
and there it is! Zak's new finger!
There is still quite a bit if healing that will need to take place but we were told by both Zak's surgeon and the hand surgeon at the University of Utah that once the finger was removed we would be amazed at how quickly he would heal. We really hope so. I think Elder Bednar spoke in the April Conference just last weekend, about the blessings that come "after the trial of our faith." I feel that making the decision to go through with the surgery rather than continuing to "wait and see" was hopefully a trial of our faith that will qualify us for the blessings promised.
