First things first, Zack is out of the hospital!
YAY!!!
He was discharged a day early since he was doing so good.
He passed Using Crutches/Wheelchairs & Functioning With Only One Leg 101 with flying colors!
But to get you caught up, here’s what you missed!
If you haven’t heard, Zack required surgery for a Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis, I wrote all about it and you can read about it HERE.
So, after spending all of Tuesday between the doctor’s office, the ER and then checking into a room in Pediatrics we attempted to get some rest to prepare for Zack’s surgery on Wednesday afternoon.
Needless to say, we slept for about 3 hours Tuesday night and were up bright and early at 4am when the nurse came in to check Zack’s vitals and draw blood.
All I have to say is thank goodness the hospital had video games to occupy Zack because that is what he did from the time he got up until he made his way to Pre-Op at noon.
Here he is in Pre-Op waiting to be prepped for the O.R.

We sat in Pre-Op for about an hour, talked with the nurses, the anesthesiologist and then his orthopedic surgeon Dr. S. Once we were done chatting , Zack made his way to the O.R.
Of course, this meant it was time for another photo op!

Once surgery was done, we had a chance to talk to Dr. S who let us know that everything went perfect.  He received a small incision on the outer right thigh, a hole was drilled through the bones and then the screw was put in place.

The best part is that Dr. S even took pictures of the screw in place so that Zack had some awesome show and tell.

Surgery took just about and hour and then he spent another hour in recovery before returning to his room. Upon his arrival he was still a little confused from the anesthesia and was quite tired. I thought for sure that once everyone cleared out of the room and everything was quiet that he would go to sleep and finally get some rest.
And he did, for about 30 minutes.
Then he wanted to play on the XBOX360 and try to eat.
That went on for a few hours.
Around 6:30ish we both started to doze of and managed to grab a quick nap before we had some visitors.
Zack’s cousins came to visit.
He was really excited because they brought him mashed potatoes with gravy from KFC and Call of Duty Black Ops for the XBOX.
For the next 2 hours, Zack and his cousin played Black Ops.

That is Zack gaming.
Does he look like a kid who just had surgery 6 hours prior??

After his cousin’s departure just shy of 10pm, we had a few snacks, popped in a movie and both passed out shortly after.
I woke up a few times throughout the night to check on Zack.
He managed to sleep, soundly, until the nurse came in shortly after 4am to check his vitals and medicate him and then went back to sleep until 7:35am Thursday morning.

Thursday was a great day—-we got discharged a day early, but more on that tomorrow!

As I write this, I am sitting in a room on the pediatrics floor of the local hospital with my oldest son Zack.  Later today, Zack will be having 2 screws placed in the growth plate of his right hip.

The last 48 hours have been crazy!

On Monday, we lost a family member.  The Alex’s Uncle C that the children were very close to passed away unexpectedly leaving the entire family in shock.  After learning of Uncle C’s passing we didn’t think the week could get worse.

We were wrong.

Soooo wrong.

Tuesday started with a trip to see the fantabulous Dr. J, our family doctor because Alexander has developed a nasty cough and I decided to have Zack piggyback Alexander’s appointment since the pain he had been having in his hip for 2 weeks had all of the sudden become very, very painful making it hard for him to walk.

Alexander checked out pretty good other than the fact that he has pneumonia.

Zack was sent for x-rays and lab work to try to figure out what was going on with his hip.

An hour and a half later after seeing that Zack’s levels were elevated and Dr. J’s consult with an orthopedist, we were sent to the ER for more tests.

We arrived at the hospital at 1pm.
By 3pm he was having an MRI on his hip to check for fluid because they suspected that he had a septic hip.
After the MRI we met with Dr. S from ortho who informed us that there was fluid in the hip joint and they would need to do a needle aspiration to check for infection.
(I do NOT recommend watching your child have a needle aspiration. I think I shed more tears then he did. It was so hard to watch him in pain and not be able to help.)

The needle aspiration showed no sign of infection in the fluid but we did learn that Zack has a slipped growth plate (Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis) and would need surgery.

After that we were admitted to the peds floor and finally left the ER.
The good news is that they are taking very good care of him. He’s been happily sitting in his hospital bed playing video games thanks to their XBOX360 Kiosks, watching movies and getting familiar with the controls on his bed.

They have helped control a lot of the pain thanks to some great meds, meaning he has been very entertaining!

The downside is that Zack will have to miss out on going deer hunting, something he was really looking forward to doing.

I will update with another post after surgery since Zack has granted me permission and has also been helping come up with creative titles and write the posts!

Wish us luck!