Being Blythe: The End of the Thumb Sucking

At the beginning of February, (Feb. 1) Mom noticed I had a really red thumb with a blood blister and a puss blister on it. She touched it and I winced and had a look of pain on my face. She and Dad talked about it and they put antibiotic ointment on it and wrapped it for my nap. They were planning to do that the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday. If it wasn't better Mom was going to take me to the Dr. on Monday. Well, after Mom got a better look at it she decided she was going to take me in on Sunday. One of the offices my pediatrician works for is open on weekends.

Saturday night when I went to bed Mom was gone so Dad put me to bed. Mom was anticipating it to be a very long, rough night with me not being able to suck my thumb since I always would do that when I went to bed. Dad told her it went well. When he was putting my pajamas on I held my thumb up, looked at him and said, "Pweas?" Good thing Dad is more realistic than Mom. Mom said that would have probably broken her and she would have taken my bandage off. Dad put me to bed anyway and I didn't cry at all. I went right to sleep and slept all night.

Sunday morning Mom made me an appointment and it just so happened that my regular Dr. was the one working so I got to see him. He took one look at my thumb and said, "Oh yeah. That's infected." He gave me an oral prescription to treat cellulitis and told Mom they should continue to put antibiotic ointment on it and wrap it to keep me from sucking it. Mom had the thought that just maybe this would break me of sucking my thumb but she said she was also realistic and knew it probably wasn't going to happen.

Well they wrapped my thumb at every nap and bedtime for just short of a week. Mom tested me at nap time one day with no band aid and I didn't suck my thumb at all. She continued to go without the band aid with the plan that if I started back sucking she would put the band aid back on. Well, I never did. It's been almost 2 weeks with no band aid and I haven't even thought about sucking my thumb. I now kind of gnaw on my "pinky" (taggie blanket) but not on my thumb at all. Mom was pretty surprised it was that simple to get me to stop.

She said the infection was a blessing in disguise. She and Dad wouldn't have tried to break me of thumb sucking this soon and the older I got the harder it would most likely be to get me to quit.

My thumb is completely healed and that big, BIG, dry callous I always had on it is gone. My thumb is completely normal looking again.