Tag Archives: surgery

A is for Appendectomy

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. This week has definitely been an interesting one for our family.

Tuesday afternoon, Zack wasn’t feeling well and began to have some pain in his stomach but not in one general area. Since he was in a lot of pain, I thought I would have him checked out just to be safe. I scheduled him for a 5pm appointment at our hospital for their extended care hours since our family doctor’s office was closed.

We arrived at the hospital and the doctor checked him out and thought that based on the fact that all he had to drink all day was a bottle of Mountain Dew and hadn’t really had much to eat that he could be dehydrated and since he had vomited shortly after arriving that it was best to pump him full of fluids and give him some anti-nausea meds.

After 2 bags of fluids, a dose of anti-nausea meds and some Toradol for the pain, Zack was acting much more like himself 4.5 hours later. (A surprise visit from his girlfriend may have helped a little).

We talked with the doctor and with the pain subsiding, the vomiting having stopped, his blood work being clear and no sign of a fever that it was okay to pack up and head home.

Well, I’m not telling you that we shouldn’t have left. We should have stayed put at the hospital and waited for the pain meds to stop working because 2 hours later, we were back in the ER having another IV put in, more blood drawn and a CT to discover that Zack had appendicitis and would need an appendectomy.

You would think that after watching him be in pain and go through not 1 but 2 hip surgeries that this would have been a piece of cake for me.

It wasn’t.

Zack was in so much more pain this time around and not even a dose of morphine helped.

By 330am we were moving him up to the surgical floor and getting him ready while I signed and gave consent for the procedure and by 4am he was in the operating room and Alex, my mom and I were in the waiting room. He was out of surgery shortly before 5am and everything went off without any problems.

Mom and I went down to his room on the pediatrics floor to wait for him and Alex made his way home to take care of the rest of the gang.

Zack made it out of recovery and back to the room around 630am and was still pretty out of it and just ready to rest. He crashed, my mom left and went to work and I went to sleep.

Since he was doing so well and was a great patient, he was discharged shortly after noon and we got him home and in bed to rest which is where he has spent most of his time since.

He’s been recovering pretty well, is moving around more on his own and is happy the worst of the pain is gone and can’t wait to be fully healed. He’s also not real thrilled that he had to take off 3 days of work and has restrictions when he goes back but I’m sure he’ll survive.

I have a follow-up appointment with the surgeon scheduled for Tuesday afternoon and hope he’ll be my fully functional Zack again in no time!

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2 Weeks Post-Op

Anne Younger Leave a comment

I am happy to report that Zack had his 2 week post-op appointment this week and so far everything is healing very well. He still needs to use both his crutches and wheel chair until he sees the good Dr. S again on December 27th. We are keeping our fingers crossed that at that appointment he will be allowed to try and put some weight on his leg/hip. He has been doing extremely well at staying off of it but cannot wait to be able to walk again.

Since being discharged from the hospital, he has only had 2 accidents and his foot touched down slightly but after seeing the x-rays this week, we are thankful that those 2 little touches did not move anything! He was also happy to have the ends of his stitches clipped finally because they kept getting caught on his clothes.

I am amazed at how well he has been doing adjusting to being in the wheel chair and on crutches and having to miss out on so many things. I am extremely thankful for a child who knows that he needs to get better and he will have the opportunity to do the things he is currently missing out on once again.

We would appreciate it if you could continue to keep him in your thoughts and send good vibes his way. The quicker he heals the sooner he will be able to get back out there and be his 12year old self all over again!

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Discharged

Anne Younger Leave a comment

As I mentioned, Zack was discharged from the hospital on Thursday, less than 24 hours post-op.

Prior to being discharged on Thursday Zack had to complete a course in using his crutches without putting any weight what-so-ever on his right leg. He will need to do this for the next 8 weeks.

Yep, absolutely no weight on his right leg for 8 weeks.

That’s rough.

Zack also got his wheelchair on Thursday which will be his main mode of transportation around the house and anywhere else he needs to go.
He likes it!

After he was discharged, we made a quick stop and grabbed a shower chair for him from a local business that was kind enough to lend us one until he is all better.

From there, we got him all settled in over at my parent’s house for the next week. We decided to move him there for the first week because their home has more space for him to move about on the lower level, it’s quiet and well….it keeps him away from Alexander so he can rest. the Alex got him all setup with the XBOX360 over there, a stack of games, and Netflix.

My sister and her kids brought him a cute basket of cookies.

My mom also hooked him up with a nice supply of magazines, soda, cookies and more.
So far, he’s been doing very well.
He hasn’t needed the pain meds much and is getting around pretty good.
For the most part, he’s doing well taking care of himself and doesn’t require assistance for much.
One struggle he is having is that he is bored.
Even with everything he has setup for him, it’s not enough for a kid who is usually very active.

He will be making the return to school on the 28th and we are hoping by then he is well rested and healing because he will need to be in his wheelchair the entire school day and push himself around the building get to and from each class.

Zack will need to see Dr. S. next week for a follow up but other than that, we have a long road ahead of us and look forward to having him back home soon and back to himself down the road.

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Screwed

Anne Younger Leave a comment

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!

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Slipped

Anne Younger Leave a comment

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!