The Back

April 2014

 Kate has been complaining off and on about her back hurting since last spring. We took her to see her spine doc, Dr. Newton, last April. He confirmed that her scoliosis had gotten worse, but not quite bad enough to put her in a brace. He didn't see anything obvious that might be causing Kate to have pain, and dismissed it as a possible strain on her back.

In the time since last April, Kate has still off and on complained of pain, but never so bad that a little Tylenol hasn't helped. There have been a few times I would find her asleep on her floor in the morning, stuffed animals all around her. I had assumed it was just a kid thing, how fun to sleep on your rug with your animals. After it happened a few times I asked her about it. She said that her back hurts in the night so she gets on the floor because it feels better.

Geez, all the little ways your heart breaks. I felt terrible. I had a talk with her and let her know this is exactly what mom's are for, come and get me, tell me you hurt, let me do what I can to make it better. This is my job. Of course she said I had other jobs also, like cooking, and then we laughed and laughed. I give out square, healthy meals, but to say I cook is a bit of a stretch.

August 2014

So today we had another x-ray and meeting with Dr. Newton. You can see from the two pictures that from April 2014 to August 2014, four months, the curvature of her spine increased significantly. When she bends over and touches her toes, I didn't used to be able to see it, not really. Today, I saw it. It was rather shocking. I didn't really know that it could look the way it did. If you look down the center of her back, along the spine, you can see that the right side and left side are not even, like not even close to even. One side is higher than the other.

On the way to the appointment today, out of the blue Kate says, "well, if I end up with a brace, at least my posture will be really good". Foreshadowing right there. Here's the deal. The Dr. will send over a request to a place that makes back braces and get the insurance approval. Then the brace place will call us and we will go in and get Kate measured for a brace. This should all happen within 2 weeks or so. Then the brace needs to be made. They will have us back to try it on and make adjustments. Then Kate gets to wear the brace for a few weeks and then go back to see Dr. Newton and they take another x-ray and see if it's properly working. She will need to wear the brace around 20 hours a day. The other alternative is surgery.

This is a post it note that the nurse handed me as we left. The measurements at the bottom, 5 foot 1 inch plus, this is how tall Kate was in April.
Now she is 5'2" plus. Four months. Just four months.

This is the issue. Kate is still growing and will continue to do so for several years. I don't want more surgery, I don't. Why does it feel inevitable? The nurse offered to connect us to other parents and kids who are in the same boat. Maybe I will do that.

First things first. Abby is leaving on the 4th to move to France for her junior year of high school. Nothing stressful about having your 16 year old move to another country for 9 months. That's sarcasm, Sheldon, as Kate would say. Between all of this, I am a living headache, horrible nights sleep, semi-zombie. Work, kids, health, pets, house.....sign me up for the padded room. It's starting to sound like club med.

I'll update when we know about the Echo and EKG results. On the bright side, because we always have one, we went to Disneyland this last weekend, having endless chips, salsa, and guacamole nearly every night, and basically throwing rules to the wind for the next week or two. Serious rebel here :)

Full back x-ray