17 March 2016

Surgery #7- Hips and legs

Tuesday Liam went into UNC Children's Hospital for a realignment. He had a femoral and pelvic osteotomy, tendon lengthening in both legs, and a hamstring lengthening in one leg. The surgery took right wround four hours but from the time they took him back until we saw him was almost 7 hours. He was preetty much completely out of it during the first day and adapted well to coming out of the surgery.

We knew what to expect when we saw him but it was still quite a shock to see his legs casted so far apart. We were told he would have a 12" bar between his legs but it's ove 14" wide itself along with the deoth of the casts so his legs are really 16" apart.

The Dr was happy we went ahead and did the procedure now beccause his left hip was almost out of socket. That shift wore down the side of his hip and reshaped his femur. The Dr shaved down and reformed his left femur and using the piece he shaved off, they bolted it to his hip lengthening the hip back to a normal shape. He didn't need to use cadaver bone so that was good. Liam's right hip needed minimal reshaping but hewanted to do it while they had him under. They then cuts his tendons to lenghten them, these are what pulled his hip so far out of alignment and then he cut into his hamstrings to lengthen these as well due to the new length of his legs. 

Liam's blood clotting factor was low and in order to remove his epidural they needed it in normal limits. In order to do that he got a transfusion of plasma today. Once that was in they took the epidural out. All pain management is now done through oral meds. We are trying to get them at a level that keeps him as pain free as possible but so far today that has been very difficult. If he wakes he cries in pain so he tries to stay asleep.

It has been pretty rough today. Not only does he have discomfort from the surgery he has his legs weighted down with casts and he is currently stuck in pretty much the same position all day long. The swelling on his thighs and the bruising have diminished some and we have lidocain patches on them to try and help just that little bit more. 

I am hoping tomorrow he is a bit better and the pain is more manageable. I miss his silly smiles. We were supposed to be discharged tomorrow but with hiis level of pain we will be here at least one more day.

P.S. UNC has been awesome to us. Every single person we have met has been attentive and helpful with Liam. We have had a team of people in and out of his room every day checking on us and caring for him. Liam's had a pain management team, the surgeon, resident surgeon, nurses, OT, PT, a teacher, case manager, anesthesiologist,  etc... And I have nothing but great things to say about all of them and our experience here.