Thursday, September 17, 2009

So How Was Your Day?

This latest adventure started last night. My mom was watching my two older children because the youngest had a doctor appointment. The plan was I was to pick up dinner then we would all meet at her house to help her clean a little. She has not been out of the hospital a month from her broken back surgery and she needed a little help. All of the kids were not happy about having to do work, but they finally quit griping and started to clean. Just as we were finishing I hear a faint cry of "Mom...Mom...Mom"

I quickly search for the source thinking that someone had broken item in the house. I find my oldest daughter on the floor crying and the vacuum still running. I learned that when cleaning the last room, she had tripped on the vacuum power cord and landed "funny" on her left leg. She said that she heard a pop and had extreme pain.

I quickly began to look at her hip. It did not look obviously out of place and she was getting blood to her toes, but I knew she was in agony. She was pointing to one particular spot in the hip joint. After talking it over, we decided to move her ourselves and take her home to see if things resolve naturally. None of us liked the idea of going to the emergency room at 8:00PM. She could not go up the stairs, so I stayed downstairs with her and we slept in the reclining chairs.

She cried most of the night so we knew that we had to have her seen by an orthopedic doctor as soon as possible. Well, we just got rid of the last ortho that said that he only wanted to see her if she needed surgery. We are due to see the new ortho next week and we will also see a doctor in sports medicine. (Yeah, with the addition of these doctors and two sleep doctors we are up to 23 doctors and therapist we see just for the girls.)

We got a hold of the geneticist and he called ahead to the ER and she was in a room very quickly. She had x-rays that showed no obvious break or dislocation. This time we got a ortho resident that was pretty good. He actually took the time to talk with my daughter and explain what he thought was causing pain. He said that she had either bruised the hip bones, or strained the groin muscle. This did not mean that it does not hurt. He said that this type of injury is common in football players and baseball players and they roll around on the ground in pain. Recovery will mean moderate rest, but she would have to move it.

Like her other hip injury, she did not want to move it. The ortho did not want to stay around to help us so he past us onto the attending doctor. The attending did not want to do it either and was upset to hear that I could not do it because of my recent neck fusion.

I asked the doctor to send it someone from Child Life that might be able to distract her in order to reduce her anxiety and therefore reduce her pain. Just a note, if you are ever in a children's hospital, ask for a Child Life worker. They specialize in explaining procedures to kids to reduce the anxiety and they are masters of distraction during painful episodes.

Anyway, Child Life did help a great deal. My daughter blew bubbles as I raised the head of her bed, thus getting her to the upright position. She was still in a lot of pain, but I could get her in the car. Praise God!

When I got home, I had to take a quick shower so I could go and see one of my doctors. Just as a finished getting dressed, we got a call from the elementary school because my youngest daughter had an electric shock through her body and her hands and feet were numb.

My husband and I quickly grabbed the back brace and headed to the school. We found out that this one was very scary for our daughter as well as her teacher. Put yourself in the teacher's shoes for a moment...she had a kid in her class that can dislocate just sitting in a chair or have a spinal injury.

We got her in the back brace and took her home. We had to drop her off in a hurry because we still had to go to my appointment. The scene at my house was my oldest in pain from the injury the night before. My youngest daughter in a back brace on high power pain killers, my son who had to try to concentrate on his homework in this zoo atmosphere and my mom, with the broken back taking care of them!

We did get out of the house to get to the neurologist. I had to go because I am having severe problems with my memory along with uncontrolled muscle movement, confusion, severe head aches and uncontrollable closing of one of my eyes.

The bottom line is that he thinks I might be stressed and in pain. Do you think? Really it took a brain surgeon to tell me this. When I tried to explain that those two symptoms are just a normal day, he said to come back when my pain was under control. I guess I will not be going back to soon as I cannot take pain medicine and I am in too much pain to sleep.

He did say that the problems that I had last winter were due to the bleeding into the brain they found before my C1-C2 fusion. I was surprised because I was led to believe that it was due to some of the medications that I was on at the time. But again, it takes a brain surgeon to tell me that I should not worry.

On the way out of the office, I told him that I would see him again next week, because my mom was coming in to try to figure out why she does not breathe after surgery. The doctors are concern because they think that her problems are due to problems in her brain stem. Meanwhile, the geneticist said that if she has a brain bleed too, this changes the ballgame for everyone involved, including the kids.

Stress? Who me?

I know that in the end, all will be well. I have no idea how it will happen, but I do trust and place my faith on the Lord. Things could have been truly awful. The hip could have been broken and the back could require surgery. Also, I could have been told that my lesion was the cause of these problems. I do praise God that he spared us from many potentially horrible consequences. All I would like is a week with no injuries and no doctor visits.

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