Friday, December 12, 2008

I neglected to mention...

one tiny little detail.

Nate had shoulder surgery this morning. We weren't really sure what to expect and didn't think it was really going to be that big of deal. Turns out it might be a big deal. He injured his shoulder during high school football. He has always had pain in his shoulder when he moves it certain ways. We used to joke about his high school football injury. We decided in October that he should probably go have it checked out since he was experiencing increasing discomfort. He had a partial dislocation (labral tear). This morning the surgeon told me that the bone was in good shape but the 15 years of wear and tear has worn his cartilage almost completely away. He will most likely have arthritis in this joint and could always experience some level of discomfort.

The surgery was only about 30 minutes but the recovery will be much longer. Our first little bump in the road to recovery happened right after surgery. The catheter for the nerve block wasn't in the right place and didn't provide any pain relief after surgery. They repositioned this and the numbing agent is now working well. He had morphine to take the edge off the pain in the recovery room and this combined with the general anesthesia made him weak, tired, and nauseous. We spent 3 hours waiting for him to stabilize enough to drive home and even then he was sick in the car. He is still experiencing a little nausea tonight. Also, I don't think we realized how little movement he would have during the recovery. He is not supposed to move his left arm at all and doing so over the next 10 days could tear the surgeons repair work. His arm will be in a sling for about six weeks.

I am a little nervous about the next 10 days or so. For the most part, I can handle the kids. I have to plan ahead a little as far as taking Vi potty, cathing Anara, or feeding the girls since breastfeeding is so time consuming. Life is just easier with two sets of hands. The biggest hurdle might be next week with our 4 days of doctors appts. Monday Edison has a pediatric appointment, Vi has a dentist appointment, and hopefully a lactation consultant is coming for a second home visit. Tuesday Violet has a dentist appointment. Wednesday Anara has a renal ultrasound and a urology appointment, and Thursday Violet has an appointment with the pulmonologist at Riley. It's going to be a crazy week.

About Violet's dental appointments... Yesterday Anara and Violet had leftover Halloween suckers. Violet told me that she had some sucker stuck in her back tooth and it was really bothering her. I was in the middle of breastfeeding so I told her to go get her toothbrush and brush it out. She brushed for about a half hour and when I finished feeding Edison she asked me to try and get it out. I looked in her mouth and realized that she had lost a substantial part of her molar. I tried to call her pediatric dentist and was unable to contact anyone. We took her to see Dr. Mark and he smoothed and sealed her tooth temporarily. He found three cavities. We scheduled an appointment with her pediatric dentist next week to make the appropriate repairs. She has seen a dentist every 6 months since she turned 1 and I was disappointed to hear that she had three cavities - you would think he would have picked up on those. I had noticed the dark spots about a year ago and pointed them out to him but he said it was just staining. I know that it isn't all about home care but it's frustrating for a kid who breastfed, took vitamins, gets limited sugar, doesn't drink juice, and brushes regularly to have 3 cavities at age 3. What's really remarkable is that Anara had terrible nutrition the first year of life, never had her teeth brushed until we adopted her and her teeth are absolutely perfect. Guess it's just genetics.

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