The end of the beginning…
Our week began with a happy reunion between Kadence and her daddy… no tears but lots of hugs. Seven weeks is a long time to to be apart from her family. She was able to show her daddy around the hospital and introduce him to all her new friends including the other halo girls (who were featured on Shriner’s FB page by the way).
On Monday she was taken into surgery at about 9:30 and back in SCU after 4+ hours. The way the surgery was described to us is that they connect the rods with screws to her pelvis, thread the rods through the soft tissue to the top and then hook them to her ribs. In the x-rays you can see that she has three clips on one side and two on the other. Dr. Heflin was pleased with the outcome and said that although her spine was more stiff than he expected, he was able to straighten the curve so that now at about 55 degrees.
The first few days after surgery were pretty rough. She was in a lot of pain and had difficulties with taking medication. After a few days we have learned which meds work best in what form (pill or liquid) and she is showing a marked improvement both in her spirits and mobility. The physical therapist got her walking and sitting up a few times a day in preparation for the trip home. She is eating a bit more and her pain is managed with oral meds so it is looking as if she will be able to make the plane trip home on Saturday.
So what lies ahead? She will be back for her first follow-up in six weeks at which time they will do her first extension. Then she will come up every two months for extensions of the magic rods. We were able to watch this process on another patient. They use magnets to get an idea of rod placement and then ultra sound to measure the extension – usually 2-3 mm. The device pictured about is the one they to magnetically extend her rods.
In a couple of years they will likely need to put in larger rods as all indications are that she will be doing quite a bit of growing. When she reaches skeletal maturity, she will come up for spinal fusion surgery. This is quite bit more involved as they will be taking out the expandable rods and replacing them with two shorter rods which will be screwed to each side of her spine along the curvature. Over the next few years the bone will fuse together and hopefully the process will be over.
While this week has been particularly grueling and we are not looking forward to the Phoenix heat, we are all anxious to get home. As always we cannot conclude our post without expressing our gratitude to the Shriner’s staff who have been simply amazing, and to our family and friends for your prayers and support.
NOTE: If you would like to receive updates by email as we post, please subscribe to our blog (link to the right of this page) and feel free to share with trustworthy friends.