Lost in translatio… no, no, it was bfe
A three hour tour, if you will.
Yep, that’s right. I got lost on the way to Griff’s doctor’s appointment in Tampa. So very, very lost. So very, very far away from the doctor’s office. God bless my personal GPS system… if academia doesn’t work out for Mike, he’s got a career waiting for him with OnStar.
Poor Griff, once he got over being freaked out that we were never gonna get home (I get a little freaked out when I get really lost… I drive faster than necessary and kinda bully other drivers into giving me their lanes, and my language becomes a bit more colorful), he did great at the appointment. The surgeon was really pleased with his progress, and she recommended some easy things we can do at home to help. Apparently, we’d better get used to the routine as we’ll be doing it with Griff until he finishes growing… another decade or so.
So, all in all, a good afternoon.
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Wordless Wednesday - The Surgery Edition
We’ve been deep into surgery and recovery this last week, so here are a few photos of the journey.
His last day - hopefully - of standing on his toes.
He’d be appalled if he knew I was posting this picture, but he did have shorts on under the gown, and I thought the animal tables at the Children’s Hospital were so cool.
At home and more than a little strung out the first night.
I have a love/hate with this photo. I’m so proud of him for working so hard, but it also breaks my mama heart to see the struggle on his face. Eliza insisted on decorating his walker, and sweet big brother that he is, he let her. (Ignore the half-a-Mike in the background.)
But I love this one… if he’s figured out how to lay across the recliner on his tummy in order to play dominoes with Eliza, he must be feeling better.
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Three Days Post Surgery
Griff’s doing better, thankfully. I’m tapering him off of the hydrocodone and Valium, though he doesn’t really know that. You know, sometimes mamas need to do things stealthily. I’ve amended my goal of having him off everything but the Motrin by Monday to by Tuesday. I think that’s realistic.
I’m having him get up and walk a short distance… the recliner to his room and back or the recliner to the kitchen and back… every hour or so. I’m only having him walk when I know the meds are working well, so he doesn’t have all bad experiences with it. When he first gets up in the morning, Mike carries him from his room since the meds haven’t had time to work at that point.
Chuck and Stacy brought Eliza home yesterday, and while she’s added another dimension to the situation here, it’s really good to have her home. She makes Griff smile, and I’m grateful for her. It was nice to have all of them here for a little bit… a good distraction for all of us.
I go back to work tomorrow, and I’m not looking forward to it at all. But I don’t worry about the boys. Mike will take good care of Griff, and they’ll get along just fine without me. I’d just like to get a good night’s sleep before heading back to work tomorrow, and I’m not sure that’ll happen tonight. We’ll see.
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Continued improvement
Griff’s doing much better this evening. His pain has been remarkably easy to manage today. Now, I’m not sure if that’s because his pain is lessening or because I’ve kept giving him meds on a consistent basis. We’ll see tomorrow when i try scaling back the meds.
He’s still not wanting to eat much, which makes sense given all the meds he’s on, but he unfortunately has to eat at least some … given all the meds he’s on. He fell asleep during dinner, so Mike carried him to our bed, and he’s sleeping now. I’m thinking I may go take a nap myself after I do another load or two of laundry.
To all who are praying for Griff, thank you. You honestly cannot know how much that means to us.
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Home
We’re home. It’s been a long and tiring day for all of us, but all things considered, it was a good day.
Kellie asked about the details of Griff’s surgery, and I realized that not everyone knows what’s going on. Here’s the short version…
Griff’s always been a toe-walker and because Mike did (does, to some extent) the same thing, we didn’t worry about it. Last fall, Griff’s gifted teacher mentioned she was worried about it because it might signal something else like muscular dystrophy or one of the palsies. So we saw a pediatric neurologist to rule those possibilities out, which we thankfully did. Then, we saw an orthopaedic doctor here in town who suggested that we see a pediatric ortho.
The pediatric ortho is based at All-Children’s Hospital in Tampa/St. Pete, and so we traveled there for a meeting with her. She suggested the surgery as the best option because Griff’s heel cords were already so tight (that’s what’s been causing the toe walking) that one of the other, less invasive treatments probably wouldn’t help.
This morning, in the surgery, the doctor made three tiny incisions in each of Griff’s Achilles tendons forcing a Z pattern into the tendon. Griff’s legs were then positioned with his feet at right angles to his legs and set into short casts. The surgery went well, though the doctor did say that his heel cords were ‘very’ tight.
The Z pattern will allow the tendon to lengthen and stretch. He’ll wear the casts for six weeks, giving his tendons long enough to heal and stretch, and hopefully, giving Griff some time to get accustomed to walking with his heels on the floor.
He came out of the initial anesthesia ok but didn’t go back to sleep. His calf muscles began to spasm from the unfamiliar position, and the poor baby was just in lots of pain.
They gave him an oral pain med and then Valium, and when neither of those helped, they gave him a dose of morphine, which finally put him back to sleep. At that point, they were seriously discussing keeping him overnight.
Once he woke up from the morphine, he was much better, thankfully. A big lunch and a few more pain meds later and they had him up walking with a walker. They asked Griff if he wanted to go home, and he jumped at the chance.
He’s currently watching a really old episode of “Drake and Josh” and waiting for the latest round of meds to put him back to sleep. I expect we’ll keep him pretty well medicated tonight and tomorrow, and we’ll start weaning him from some of the drugs on Saturday.
I was beyond impressed with the staff of the All Children’s Hospital. We were blessed by their professionalism and their dedication to making sure Griff was comfortable. It was one of the nurses who left the room as Griff cried in agony saying, “I’m going to get an auth for some morphine.”
And, as I have been too many times in the past, I was impressed with Griff’s strength and bravery. He’s a remarkably tough kid. I swear he didn’t get that from me.
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