Yesterday Josiah had surgery to fix the outside part of his foot/toes that were twisting under.
Since Tuesday's surgery was decided on Monday night, the insurance didn't get paperwork until 9:30am. I was called by the hospital to come in at noon, but of course once we got there, they wouldn't even let us go upstairs until the authorization was approved. (*long sigh*) >__<
After almost 6 hours of waiting around, they took him back.
The whole time we were waiting Jo did pretty well, even though he hadn't eaten anything since 3:30am (when I woke him up and made him eat a PB&J) ;) Thank God for laptops & Leapsters, which kept him pretty distracted. Of course, there was some whining about being hungry, but other than that he did great. I was impressed that he was so nonchalant about the whole thing. I figured after having gone through it once, that he would be fearful of the pain. He wasn't afraid at all. No freak outs. He just accepted what had to happen, and went with it. (I attribute that to all the prayers!)
Anyway, the surgery went very well according to Dr. Nelson. He was able to secure the part of the foot that was "falling" with a new pin under the foot, and by repositioning the two going across the top (through the metatarsals-- hot pink area below.
The problem before was that the metal rods (pins) going through did not "skewer" (my word) all the metatarsals. The last 2 were missed (which is usually not a problem), but in Jo's case, the lack of support caused foot to start falling/twisting under as we pushed the foot over to the left. The whole operation only took about 2 1/2 hours from when they brought him back to when Dr. Nelson came to talk to us. (I felt so bad for him! He'd been operating all day. I don't know how he does it... especially without caffeine! Ha!) Actually, I know how: he is anointed by God!
We got to go up and sit with Josiah in recovery for an hour. He woke up feeling pretty good! They didn't have to put the breathing tube down his windpipe this time, so his throat wasn't even sore. He had no pain due the nerve block. Once he drank some juice and was able to sit up, they let us go home. We pulled up in the driveway at about 9:45. It was a long day, but successful.
Even though it's swollen & discolored, it already looks a lot better from yesterday! Good job Dr. Nelson! :)
We will need to finish the last 5 days of our 1st prescription of turnings, then move on to the next phrase (dorsal flexion- bringing the foot up towards the body). We were happy to find out the next presecription is only 25 days instead of 40 like this last one. That puts "correction" done on 8/25. From there we'll have 30 days of stasis, then the TSF comes off (appx Sept. 22) & then we move to a short cast for another 6 weeks or so making our "finish line" appx. Nov. 3rd. (so right around Jack's 1st birthday!)
Josiah slept through the night, but woke up at 5:30am complaining of pain (which I expected since the nerve block was put in at 6pm and it lasts about 12 hours). I gave him OTC Ibpruphen. I really want to avoid the codeine if possible. I think the side effects are worse than than benefits. He went back to sleep until 8:30am, and woke up again complaining of pain. So I gave him OTC Tylenol.
We had a rough morning of screaming and crying off and on until I gave him the Ibuprofen again at 11:15. At noon, he finally calmed down. Now he shouts out occasionally, but seems ok for the most part.
I attached a video so you know what I mean when I say he's howling.
The good thing is he's not like this all day.
Right now (at 5:10pm) he is sitting quietly playing on the laptop.
It's still pretty rough when he does go through those "Mr. Hyde" moments...
Prayers appreciated! :)
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