so far, so good

Mason had an impromptu visit with the doctor this afternoon, and there is no sign of infection so far. Yay!  It is not uncommon to run a little fever in the days following surgery...but it is something to keep an eye on, especially with his history.

His incision looked pretty good, but he had a really big blood blister looking spot where the soft tissue was stretched/damaged during the procedure.  The doc said it will heal fine with no scarring, but it was pretty weird looking. You can see it under the yellow gauze - the incision is at the bottom of his arm, and stretches nearly the length of his forearm.  Overall there is still quite a bit of swelling and bruising, but nothing unexpected.  The doctor probed his arm, and there was no pain around the incision, just around the elbow where the soft tissue is angry.

The doctor put a full arm cast on it (which makes me happy because it is more protected for going back to school) and he will go back next Monday, Dec 5, after the Infectious Disease clinic visit.  Hopefully we will have an uneventful week with no fevers, no new pain.

nervous

Mason started to run a low-grade fever yesterday.  Could be nothing, but I am a little nervous because he did the same thing when he had staph.  I can't see his incision because it still has the hard surgical dressing on it that isn't supposed to come off until Wednesday.   I will be calling his doctor as soon as the office opens.Now would be a good time to send your healing thoughts and prayers his way. Thanks for checking on him.

3 days post-op

It was nice to be home for Thanksgiving :)

Mason hasn't felt great, but he is hanging in there!  This surgery is probably his most painful, because not only was his bone cut, but since it was an acute lengthening of the bone, the muscles and nerves, even his skin to some degree, all had to be acutely stretched as well.  So they are a little angry about that.  Also, his hip continues to be annoying to him - I suppose having a chunk taken from your hip bone would feel similar to a broken hip.  Anyway, he has effective pain relief medications, but they make him pretty snoozy.  I am hopeful that today he will be able to cut back on the narcotics a little so he can get up and around a bit.

Another issue that's probably contributing to his general malaise is that the Infectious Disease department decided that he *should* be on antibiotics for a few weeks after the surgery.  So, he came home with a prescription for clindamycin, which is the main antibiotic he took last year for the staph infection.  Blehk. But hopefully that will only be for a few weeks.  He did not test positive for staph, but they decided the risk was too great to not treat for one, especially since he has a sizable plate holding the bone together. We need that plate to stay!!!

Mason goes in next Wednesday for a follow up appointment with the ortho doc. I'll probably get some x-rays at that visit that I can post.  The plan is for him to wear a brace, not a cast (yay) which will be nice for showering, etc.  The doc said there will be NO drumming at all, until further notice by her.  However, she will release him to some piano playing fairly soon.  So that is some small bit of good news.  He has an appointment with the infectious disease department on Monday, December 5 to test his bacterial load.  This is the single most worrisome issue (says the doctors) because if the staph returns it can derail everything!

So, I will post after Mason's follow-up visit Wednesday.  I'm not sure when he'll go back to school. As of today, I can't imagine him going back Monday - he is still shuffling rather than walking - but I know with kids things can change quickly, so we will just plan to be flexible.  Thanks for checking on him.

overnight

Around 9:30 last night Mason was finally able to wiggle his fingers. His block was placed at 7:30am, so it was over 12 hours and he was starting to worry that something horrible had gone wrong.

No fears--the block definitely wore off. And when it did, it was like a wrecking ball swinging through this room. Nothing happens fast enough when your child is in that kind of pain, but they finally were able to get things under control. I was picturing his bones being chiseled and the muscles and ligaments being spread, and I could picture all this nerves screaming in protest.....and I was powerless. Sure, I can lean on the nurses, but I discovered last night that I no longer have healing powers. The mommy medicine of kisses, cool cloths on the forehead, holding his hand, stroking his face.....none of that helps at his age. In fact, what was once a comfort is now an annoyance. And this is how it should be, as he is growing up. But it was a reality check for me. I have to find my way to be the support he needs now, so I am learning. It's weird.

Anyway, we seem to have the pain under control now. Masons surgeon came by early, followed by a gaggle of other various doctors, some looking not much older than Mason. This is a teaching hospital after all. The doc says we will see how he does this morning and if all is well he will head home this afternoon.

I will update from home where I have a real keyboard for typing. I love my iPad, but I get a little long-winded for it to be comfortable.

resting comfortably

Mason is in room #1 -- first surgery, first room I guess -- on 5 Henson tower. He has taken a few sips of Gatorade, and woke up long enough to tell me to "stop touching me please"! It's hard to be a mom sometimes. He also said his hip is sore--he can't feel his arm yet because of the nerve block. That will probably wear off this evening, and I'll be glad to be inpatient when that happens, cuz they have the good stuff here.

So he did get the bone graft from his hip, but his radial head is staying in place without the aid of any donor ligament. It was decided that we would stay out of the elbow joint as much as possible for now, and see how this works and if his cartilage will regenerate itself in that eroded joint. We did see the x-rays of the elbow before and after, and although it isn't perfect, it sure looks a lot better, alignment-wise! Hopefully this will eliminate his pain and allow him better mobility with his arm.

He should become alert in the next couple of hours, and we'll see how he feels then.

done!

Mason is in recovery, and we just talked to the surgeon who said everything went well. He will be in recovery for a couple hours (he tends to be slow coming back) and then will move to a room on 5 Henson.

More info later--thanks for checking on him!

on time

They took Mason back for surgery about 7:30.....so it looks like being first has its perks.

first in line

The hospital called and left a message that said Mason is to report at 6:00am tomorrow. I guess no one told them that he is NOT a morning person. Ugh.

Nothing to eat or drink after 4am - so I'm guessing his surgery is scheduled for 8am, although they didn't say in the message. The doctor said he would be first on the docket, so things should be underway by 8:00, I would guess, barring any last-minute emergencies that might keep the ER or the surgeons busy.

I will update this blog from the hospital tomorrow after we talk to the doctor and are in the waiting room.  Thanks for checking in.

November update

"I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time."

Mason had his pre-op clinic visit today, and we got quite a bit of information during the visit....so much that it was overwhelming!  

First off, the surgeon made it very clear that this is not a routine operation.  In fact, I believe she used the words "major deal" and "tricky" in her description.  She has some concerns that she wanted us to be aware of, number one worry being the risk of infection.  While the last infection was contracted through the pinhole from his external fixator, and we won't have that kind of situation this time, there is a fear that staph bacteria doesn't really ever "go away", it just gets walled off (cellularly speaking) and contained. But, cutting into that area could open the floodgates again.  So, to guard against that she will be doing her best to avoid the area where the infection was located.

While there were many other issues, infection seems to be the biggie.  Mason will get antibiotics through an IV while in the hospital (he will spend at least one night), but will not get a prescription for that when he leaves.  Seems strange, but the docs say that would not prevent him from getting an infection, and might in fact make his strain become resistant.  So I will be on pins on needles between visits, worrying about infection. I'm hopeful we would recognize it was happening this time, but I know that reactions can be different every time. And of course, if he does contract an infection, they will treat it much like they did last time--the evil drug therapy.

So here is the basic scoop of what she is going to do.  She will be performing an acute lengthening/osteotomy on the ulna bone to straighten/lengthen it so it will allow the radial head to slide back into it's correct position.  That means she will cut, then pull the ulna bone apart, straighten the bone,add some bone graft - likely from Mason's hip - and put it where its supposed to be and plate/screw it in place. Then she will put the radial head back into the elbow socket - and make it stay.  To do this she may need to use donor ligament to tie the joint back together. There are *a lot* of unknowns going into this procedure, and we are going to have to be extremely flexible, as we won't know exactly what all will need to be done until the procedure is underway.  There will be two surgeons, our regular orthopedic surgeon AND an upper extremity specialist, who deals a lot with nerves and such, another area of concern in this procedure.  

That is the procedure in a nutshell, but there is so much other stuff to think about.  

Our number one goal is to make Mason pain-free.  Our number two goal is to increase his range of motion.  I want both goals realized.

This picture is of the offending elbow.  You can click on it to make it larger, and you can see how the radial head is sticking way out of the socket. (on the right side of your picture).  This causes total bone on bone action in his elbow, which has caused the joint to erode.  We are hoping that once the elbow joint is functioning more normally, that it will heal itself.  If that does not happen...well then, that is a whole new story.  

On the left is Mason's left forearm, where if you click on the pic to enlarge it you can see how the ulna has bowed, and is pushing the radius out of alignment.  On the right is his right forearm, which is straight, with a normal elbow joint.


So, I have my work cut out for me, worrying for the next few months!!


Right now his surgery will probably the first one of the day - it is scheduled for Tuesday, November 22.   I will find out the exact time the day before.


** A few people have had trouble posting comments. I think I have fixed the problem - you can now pick "anonymous" as your profile if you don't have a gmail address, and type in the verification code it gives you, and you should be able to post. Thanks for checking in.