When God hands you a lemon...

You know the rest of the saying. Suffice it to say that we're getting a little tired of lemonade around here. We love our little lemon though, and we're glad her second surgery is over and we're moving forward again. We should have known Laney might be needing two surgeries when the doctor told us this summer, "I've only had one kid where the first surgery didn't relocate the hip properly and we had to go in and do it again." Laney always picks the short side of the odds. If she keeps this up, she'll probably someday win the lottery, be over 6 feet tall, become a Rhodes scholar, make it big as an actor or singer, save the world, and have a dozen children of her own. But she probably wouldn't even be here if she didn't beat the odds all the time, so we're not complaining about that.
This surgery was not nearly as smooth as the last one, and probably gets us started in the Bad Parents of America Club, if we weren't already members. She was out of surgery at about 9am and was in a different position this time, very spread-eagle, almost in the splits with just a slight bending of the legs. She was not happy, and never really stopped screaming. Except when the nurse gave her 0.06mg of demerol, and then almost everything stopped, including her breathing. So we had to sit there for 1 and 1/2 hours regularly stimulating her chest to remind her to breath so her O2 levels would stay up. It brought us full circle back to our months in Neonatal Intensive Care. Ah, such wonderful memories.
Anyway, the demerol finally wore off and the screaming started again. We took her home at about 11am, probably to the delight of the recovery room who didn't have to listen to her screaming anymore. We thought she would calm down at home, and figured she was probably just scared again and maybe a bit more uncomfortable due to the new position she was in with the cast. We kept giving her tylenol every 3 hours, which has a bit of hydrocodone in it, and tried to calm her down and get her to sleep. By 5:30pm, she was still crying. I'm not kidding, she never really stopped crying. Even after the tylenol treatments, she would calm down and almost get to sleep, but after just a few seconds she would jerk herself awake and start screaming again. After a while we started to worry, even wondering whether she was giving herself little seizures due to her hysteria. We finally gave up and called the doctor, who said she was probably having muscle spasms and suggest we combine the tylenol with Motrin (ibuprofen) and see if that worked. By 8pm we had given up and the doctor sent us to the hospital, where they gave her some valium and a comfortable crib, where she finally got some rest. In hindsight, we probably should have called the doctor much earlier and taken her back to the hospital much earlier, which is where the Bad Parents membership comes in. We just thought she would finally calm down, but she just couldn't due to the muscle spasms. We've probably scarred her for life now. We feel scarred ourselves!
Angie spent the night with Laney and we took her home the next afternoon, hoping she hadn't picked up swine flu which is running through the hospital. However, even the little bit of valium she was getting was reducing her drive to breath, so we went home with an O2 and heart rate monitor, and quickly came to the conclusion that 1/4 doses of valium or less was all we could give her. Due to the stress of the whole situation, we decided we would just take the rest of her dose, and that has helped us out a lot. Wink, wink.
So we're now on day 4 post-surgery and she is doing much better, though she still isn't eating like she was before. But she's getting there. We go back on Wednesday for the MRI to check whether the hip is properly placed this time, and if not we'll be back for round 3, which will be a more invasive surgery. And we'll be drinking even more lemonade.

Can't Catch a Break

We just can't seem to catch a break with this kid. As I mentioned in the last post she had the surgery on her hip. Things went well and we brought her home. There was an adjustment period with getting her used to her cast. It took a few days but she resolved to hanging out in her cast for the next 12 weeks. Her surgeon like to be cautious so we took her in yesterday for an MRI on her hip. There is always the possibility that it can come out of socket while she is in her cast. The MRI went great. She did really well. In fact she fell asleep while they were putting in her IV! (I wish my patients would do that) she slept all the time we were waiting to get the MRI. No problem, she did great! We took her home and after a long nap she was her happy self again.
Tody was the follow up with her sugeon. Brought up the MRI on the screen. And...yup, you guessed it! HER HIP IS OUT! "you are kidding!" is the first thing I said. #@*&! @#%&@$ was the second! It isn't out by much it is mostly just positioned to high in the socket. #$&*! $#%!#@ I say again! Calm down, I say to myself. OK, what do we do now? "take the cast off and do the surgery again." he says. I like the "take the cast off" part, not so excited about doing the surgery again. Fine, get the cast off and let the kid have some peace. I will take a few days with out the cast. There really isn't much I can do about the rest.
So his nurse brings in a cast cutting machine and we start cutting off the cast. Other than a little noise it really doesn't seem to bother Laney much. I cover her ears and we keep cutting. All the sudden Laney screams. I am thinking to myself...why is this bothering her now...we are almost done. I calm her down and look at the nurse as she starts to pry the cast apart. Yup you guessed it, the saw to cut off the cast cut Laney's leg. *&#%! #$@!**%## I am saying to myself. Don't scream at the nurse, YET, just keep Laney calm. So being the trooper she is Laney calms down and just does the little gasping cry. The Physicians assistant comes in, mind you I have not said a word and neither has the nurse. The nurse hands over the cutting tool and walks out without saying a word. No apology nothing. I am a nurse. I know things don't always go perfectly. I understand and I have sympathy. But when something like this goes wrong you aplogize and move on. We got nothing. I was so mad. Unfortunately I took it out on the PA a bit and walked out of the office. It is a superficial cut. It's not like Laney was bleeding everywhere but it is about a 2 inch gash in her thigh. I feel so bad for this kid. Some times I think she needs a better mom. I can't believe all that she has to go through. It could be worse, I know, but today it sucks.