Surviving the Spica: Frustration!

Oh my little miss hippy chic . . . she couldn't just patiently wait to go to the hospital for her surgery.  We've had to make a few preemptive trips!

The kids are on spring break this week.  On Monday, Katie woke up and wouldn't get out of her bed.  She was crying, saying "boo boo!  boo boo!"  It took me about 45 minutes to get her calmed down.  We gave her some Motrin and settled her on the couch.  She didn't get up all.day.long.  She even had a potty accident (and not pee) on the couch because she wouldn't get up to go to the bathroom and Chris was upstairs with one of the boys.

After work on Monday I stopped and got her several fabulous dresses to wear while she's got her cast.  We have a consignment store here that's pretty hit or miss, and it was obviously a hit day on Monday.  When I came home, she was still on the couch, and she was very restless.  Chris and I decided I would take her to the hospital.  Even though her behavior wasn't as severe as when her hip is dislocated, we knew something was not right.  

I packed little miss and her iPad up, as the hospital is over an hour from our house.  I was surely not bringing her back to our local ER.  They were scared of her because she's a child and because of her Down syndrome, and at this point in the game we're just going right to the hospital where our ortho doctor works.  My dad came along with us, and I'm so glad he did.  It was nice to have some company.

As long as she had her iPad, she was thrilled.  She was the happiest child at the hospital, blowing kisses and winking at everyone.  We had an X-ray, and the leg was reset again by the X-ray tech.  We determined that it was a partial dislocation, essentially where the femur isn't sitting in the correct place in the hip socket but isn't completely out.

Tuesday, no boo boo issues.  She had a completely normal day.  Chris brought Jack and Henry to their baseball practices in the evening and I brought Katie and David to get Katie's hair cut.  Monday she developed a crazy amount of bed head from just one day on the couch.  I'm trying to minimize that as much as possible while she's recovering from her surgery.

Before

After

Wednesday, everyone was asleep when I left for work.  At 8:24 I got a text from Chris that read "Booboo again."  I was beyond frustrated.  I called her doctor's office who told us to bring her on in.  Totally convenient.

Chris brought her to my office, and I left work and brought her to Vanderbilt.  She was fitted for a hip abduction brace, and then she was X-rayed in the brace.

She was not a fan of the brace at first.  It's big, it's bulky, and it's weird.  It's great practice for the cast.  Again, it was a partial dislocation, also called hip subluxation.  She will wear the cast twenty-four hours a day until surgery.  It will should prevent the dislocation and subluxation until then.  Can you imagine if we still had to do this until July?

I piled her up in the stroller and brought her downstairs for some $5.00 ice cream.  

A little Ben & Jerry's makes everyone feel better.

We went to pick up some supplies for post-op.  That did not include this piano, although she loved it.

I also learned quickly that the brace won't fit into a regular shopping cart.  And that I'm going to have amazing biceps when we're done with this process, because she already needs to be carried more.  She has 15-30 degrees of range of motion with her left leg.  That allows her to walk and sit.  Sort of sit.  It does not allow her to go up stairs.  

She did score this guitar, which she played with for hours.  Katie doesn't play with anything for hours, because she really still doesn't understand toys much.  Give her a microphone or a musical instrument though, and it's on!

She quickly realized that she can walk, run, and jump in the brace.  It really didn't slow her down at all, until she got to the stairs.  I anticipated a sleepless night last night, but she didn't wake one time.  She slept in her bed, and we'll see how that goes when she wakes up.  I don't think she's going to be able to sit up by herself from her bed, so I hope she doesn't try to roll out.  We've already gotten her toddler bed back down from the attic and put it in our room so she can start sleeping there again if she needs to.

So that's where we are.  I hope we only have to go to Vanderbilt one more time before her surgery, and that's for her pre-op appointment and CT scan on Monday.  It's incredibly frustrating to have the subluxation happen repeatedly, so I'm very hopeful that the brace will work and we won't have any issues until the 16th.  And thank God that surgery has been moved up to April!!