What a Week!

Last week Jeffrey was having trouble lifting his leg and walking and was just not himself. He was cranky and crying a lot. That was his body's way of saying, "Something's not right!"
I e-mailed Dr. Standard and the physical therapist in Baltimore. The PA called me back and said it's hard to diagnose Jeffrey over the phone and to bring him down. So....Wednesday morning I quick got the kids dressed and ready. Wiped my tears, hoping that nothing was going to be wrong. Jack went to Ms. Chris' (she rocks) and Jeff and I made the drive down to Baltimore!

We got xrays and saw Dr. Standard. It is not a clinic day so the doctor had to come out of surgery to talk to us.
After looking at Jeff's xrays, Dr. S said he had a loose screw (go figure!). Actually, it was two loose screws. The xray showed a dark gray area around those pins, meaning the bone was not keeping the pin in tight. 

the top 1st and 3rd pins are the ones that were loose

This was probably the reason he has had trouble in PT and at home. The plan??? SURGERY! UGH! That is so not what I wanted to hear. Surgery would entail taking out the 2 loose pins and putting a new one in a new spot at the top of the femur to keep it all stable.
I called Jamie as soon as we were out of the office and back in the waiting room. I hated to interrupt his class but I knew he'd want to know what was going on. Poor guy. I had him worried. I know it's gotta be hard not being able to be with us because of work. I told him all the info. We agreed that one good and scary thing about having this surgery is that Dr. Standard mentioned maybe taking off the tibial pins and the arch across the knee. Interesting....
We were waiting for an official surgery date. They wanted to do it that Friday, but selfish me knew we had Pippet's wedding and didn't want to miss our good friend's wedding. We scheduled it for Tuesday, November 2nd, if he could wait that long.
We took it easy on Halloween using the double stroller.

Jeffrey (aka Star Wars Man), Gaetan, Max, Jack (in the box)

Fast forward to Monday night. My sister, Jen, graciously, volunteered to take Jack E. overnight. That way Jamie and I could both be with Jeffrey the whole time. We stayed overnight at the Hackerman-Patz House since we had to be at the hospital by 6 a.m. for his 7:30 surgery.

watching tv at HP before heading to the hospital

pre-op

The half hour surgery ended up having us wait for like 2 hours before we heard anything. That made us even more nervous. The anesthesiologist came out to bring us to the post-op recovery area to see our boy. We didn't know how we'd find him. He was talking and wanted to sit up.  He said he wasn't in pain. He was looking around and reading numbers on signs. He drank down 3 things of apple juice. NO O.J. this time. We learned our lesson.
I broke out my camera to take this pic and he freaked.

eating graham crackers post-op

We were all like, "What's wrong? What hurts?" "I want mommy to stop taking pictures!! WAAHHH!!!" haha and oops.
All he wanted to do was get in his stroller and leave. I was anxious to see what his new fixator gadgets looked like and what the bottom of his leg looked like minus the fixator part.

fixator on top, bottom all wrapped in an ace bandage, fixatorless

Now, it's Thursday. The first few days have gone surprisingly well. Today was the first day of post-op pincare. Thank God Jamie was home so we could go at this thing together. We took turns doing woundcare and holding Jeff's hands. I am posting pics below of the new "ghetto rigged" fixator and his pin holes from the tibia. Squeamish beware!

left and right pins are brand new, middle pin, the original (I think)

holes where pins used to be in tibia

pinholes

Gentle was the word repeated over and over again by all hospital staff and the PTs. His tibia is now like swiss cheese. It has holes in it. Yea, no pressure mom and dad, but don't let your child do anything a 4 year old might do. haha He could break his leg. Greeeeeat!

Oh, did I mention this was all on the hush from my parents? Well, they are on a cruise around Hawaii. My mom, who hates boats and hates water at night, went on a cruise. I figured being nervous and stressed about that was enough. I was not going to add to it. There is nothing they can do. I wasn't going to blog or post on FB in case they'd catch it. Well, now they know, so the secret is out.

We don't go back to see Dr. Standard for 4 weeks. He recommended no PT until our next clinic visit with him. That will be nice b/c it will free up our schedule quite a bit :) Enjoy our latest adventure.