Drs, Nurses, and Needles: Surgery, April 15th


My favorite picture, this is post surgery and Ethan just asked her where it hurt and she replied, "where do you think?" and gave us this look. Spunky little stinker.

When Kate had bilateral hip surgery a couple of years ago, we knew this day would come. Kate had long plates with screws on the outside of each femur and they needed to come out. And the main reason being that at some point in the future she will likely need hip replacements. Great, right? I'm hoping for when she is 50, or 60, or never.

Waiting to go in

Here is a girl who is far too happy to be having surgery. She knows the routine so well, she can tell the staff members what is coming next.

Kate was supposed to use crutches for three weeks post surgery and no sports for six weeks. She can't do sports anyway due to her heart, but no rough housing around for six weeks. The bones were very weak and needed time to fill in the area where the plates and screws had been.

The surgery went well and Kate was a trooper. One night in the hospital, yay! She did struggle a little bit to put pressure on her legs and so for the first 2 days she used a wheelchair at home. By day three she was sneaking about without her crutches.

At our one week post op visit, Kate pretty much carried her crutches into the hospital. I had to keep reminding her to use them, if for no other reason than the doc won't yell at mom. Everything looked great, but we were told two more weeks on the crutches just to "slow her down". She took them to school for one more week, only used them at recess and to walk out to the car. She has done so well with this surgery, by day three she was just taking Tylenol and was lamenting to go swimming. That had to wait.

Kate is doing great. One little glitch...a few days before surgery, Kate complained that her back hurt. This happened about three times. Finally had to take her in. The doctor thought it was just a pulled muscle and she hasn't complained since. But, since she was there, they did a back x-ray and found that her scoliosis has gotten more severe. We are officially on a 6 month monitoring schedule for that instead of the yearly. Sigh... and the band played on.