A new thumb for a child who really needed one

EDGEWOOD, Pa. -- The halls leading to the children's classrooms of the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf here are adorned with the artwork of youngsters. Tiny paper hands, the colorful outlines traced in crayon and cut with scissors, bear the carefully scrawled names of the children who created them.The hands speak to you.Nancy Benham, coordinator for the parent-infant program at the school, walks down a hall into the classroom where her 4-year-old daughter, Grace, is learning American Sign Language.Grace is deaf, but that isn't a disadvantage here. What sets Grace apart is her right hand, a hand that is almost essential for communicating in sign language."Do you want to show us your new thumb?" Benham asks her daughter in sign language.Grace shyly shakes her head and hides behind her mother's leg.Nancy and Roy Benham adopted Grace a little over two years ago. Born in Korea, the child was pitted against a number of obstacles.She was deaf. She was born with a heart defect and a cyst at the base of her spine that impaired her ability to stand and walk.And she was born with a condition called radial aplasia, meaning she did not have a right thumb or radius, the long bone behind the thumb at the wrist. Her little hand, with its four fingers, was curled up and positioned near the midsection of her arm.But the Benhams, who had no children, had no reservations about the adoption. Benham, 43, who earned a Ph.D. in educational administration, had been involved in deaf education for 19 years. She and Mr. Benham, 44, a funeral director, were confident that they could provide the perfect home for Grace.Grace's heart defect was corrected when she was 6 months old. Doctors at Children's Hospital removed the cyst in October 2005.Signing is the third most-learned language in the United States. Grace picked it up quickly.But many of the words and letters used in American Sign Language require a thumb. And while Grace could have signed with only her left hand, some of the words -- such as "book" and "family" -- are represented with two hands.The Benhams heard that there were doctors capable of reshaping a hand, moving the index finger to where the thumb would be. It would require a number of surgeries and long, painful and frustrating recoveries.Dr. Mark Baratz, an Allegheny General Hospital orthopedic surgeon who specializes in hands, was recommended to the Benhams by another doctor.Dr. Baratz first saw Grace in September 2005."I have done lots of different operations to rebuild the thumb, to realign the thumb. It's one of the more common things that we do on children. But this was the first time that I did an operation on a child who couldn't speak, couldn't hear, and needed this hand, not only for eating, playing and working, but for communicating," said Baratz, who studied sign language when he was a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh. "So, for me, the stakes were higher."He settled on a transposition, relocating Grace's right index finger.Grace's parents explained to the little girl some of what the doctor would be doing and used one of her dolls as an example."She is a trouper," Benham said. "The only time she really complained was after one of the surgeries when her cast, when it dried, was too tight. She cried."But it didn't slow her down. She was in a cast or a splint, basically, for a year, playing and learning just like any other child. She wanted to be doing what everybody else was doing."From all indications, Baratz said, the operation has been a success. Though at first tentative, Grace has begun to employ her right hand -- and her new thumb -- in her daily routine. The other night, her mother said, they were sitting at the dinner table, and Grace used her right hand to pick up a French fry. Both parents noticed it and broke into wide grins.E-mail Dan Majors at dmajors(at)post-gazette.com . For more stories visit scrippsnews.com