Saturday, December 14, 2013

Hannah's Ears

So, this is the update on Hannah. Back in August, I found out her hearing, which has always fluctuated between borderline normal and mild loss, had deteriorated in both ears.  Scroll down to the "Hear Ye, Hear Ye" post for the technical explanation. But bottom line was she was showing a moderate-severe to mild loss in both ears. (Moderate-severe loss in lower frequencies rising to mild loss in upper frequencies).  Her ENT felt like a tube in the left ear might bring hearing in that ear back to normal. (The right ear still had a hole in it). So she had the tube placed mid-september. We went back at the end of October for a re-check of her hearing and it was sadly not any better. A couple frequencies did improve slightly, but a couple were slightly worse too.  Her ENT thinks all her previous ear infections / fluid issues have eroded parts of her middle ear bones. The only way to know for sure is exploratory surgery, but if that's the case, he wouldn't recomend surgical reconstruction at this time due to her continued eustachian tube dysfunction.  He felt like her best option would be hearing aids.

We followed up with Children's Rehab Services because we were already plugged into them for cleft-related things. They have a hearing clinic as well and I was able to get a quick appointment there.  After double checking her hearing one last time to make sure there were no changes, the audiologist went ahead and made molds of her ears and had Hannah pick out her hearing aid colors.  She chose purple for the actual aids and pink and purple swirl for the molds.  About 3 weeks later, they were in.  So, we went back to pick them up, check fitting, and another hearing test with the hearing aids. It was so cool to see her audiograms with the aids and compare them to without.  Her hearing levels tested completely normal in all frequencies with the aids.  And the technology is amazing. I was worried that some sound might be too loud amplified. Despite having a hearing loss, Hannah is sensitive to loud sounds. But the program in the aids themselves adjusts to the loudness. Something technical about compression and such. :) But basically, they are programed to only go to a certain loudness level in order to not damage more hearing. And they adjust automatically. If someone were to come up to Hannah and slam a door right behind her, the aids would automatically compensate and decrease output.  Hannah was so excited to get her hearing aids and loved them. And 2 weeks later, she still loves them. She puts them on every morning and takes them off every night. She has done great with caring for them and cleaning them as well.  And she changed the batteries on them tonight. She says she can tell a difference with them in. I can tell a difference.  I'm rephrasing a lot less often and she just seems a little more relaxed. So I'm glad we got them.  She'll go back in 2 months to have them rechecked and then will probably only go back every 6 months for a check and new molds unless concerns arise.  The aids themselves should last years but she'll need frequent molds due to growth.

I asked her if she thought they helped her at school. She said yes, she can tell a difference. She does still have a little trouble in noisy situations. But that's because while the aids will amplify her teacher's voice, they also amplify all the background noise.  But we are working on solutions to that. Her only complaint is that sometimes lunch and PE are too loud. I can see that - I've eaten enough lunches in school cafeterias to know how loud it can get.  Right now she doesn't have any control over the volume of her hearing aids, but that is possible with these aids. It just takes the audiologist "activating" the volume control button.  So, that's a possibility so she can turn down the volume in those noisy situations.   I just hope she doesn't turn me down when I'm telling her something she doesn't like! :)





NEXT POST: All About Christmas Fun! (Coming soon)

Sadie's Surgery - Goodbye Fixator!

Sadie's Surgery (#2 for this series, #6 total)

The day after Thanksgiving Sadie and I headed to Atlanta bright and early. REALLY early. We left my parents' house at 3:45 a.m.! While the fixator was on, Sadie had several infections and rounds of antibiotics. She had been off antibiotics for about a week. She had been fine - the pin sites looked great, etc. And the morning of surgery, she starts complaining in the car that her arm hurts. Sure enough, when we got there and took the gauze off, it looked like it might be getting infected again and had been draining.  Her surgeon looked at it before surgery. And then afterwards said it did look like it was in early stages of infection. He also said her pins were very loose in the bone.  Not terribly surprising as long as they had been stretching her wrist out for such a long time.. But it looks like the fixator came off just in time before causing problems.  She did have to take a round of antibiotics after the surgery though.  Sadie's surgery overall went great, but she was pretty sick at her stomach afterwards.  We were prepared for it this time though.  First, I had a letter from her nephrologist stating they should not limit her fluids (like they did last time). That helped because I didn't have to worry about her being dehydrated. Plus it helped her just not feel so bad. And second, her surgeon had made plans to tentatively keep her overnight. Basically, he admitted her immediately after surgery, but gave us the option of going home late afternoon if she was doing fine.  But even through the afternoon, she wasn't drinking and couldn't keep it down if she did. So we stayed. The fluids and pain medicine being given through IV helped and she also got 3 doses of iv antibiotics while we were there so I'm glad we stayed. By the next morning, she was back to herself: eating pancakes, joking with the nurses, wanting out of bed, and ready to go home. We were discharged late that morning and she did great from then on.  She was happy about two things: she got a purple and pink sparkly cast and her surgeon let her keep the fixator (minus the pins thankfully).  Her stuffed dog pouffy had a little surgery done once we got home.

Sadie kept the purple and pink cast for only 10 days. Then it was back to Atlanta for post-op xrays, cleaning of her surgery site, and a new cast. X-rays looked great! Her new cast is Christmas red and green and to Sadie's delight is a short-arm cast. (Her purple and pink one was long-arm so she's now thankful to be able to move her elbow.)  During the few minutes between casts, we got a good look at her arm.  It's pretty brusied and "yucky" looking still, but it's very straight. Her surgeon was really happy with it. She'll keep this cast until mid-January. Then she'll move to a splint that can come on and off.  She'll keep it on most of the time for a while, but will be able to take it off for baths. Eventually she'll move to a night-splint, which is what she was doing before we started all this.  She'll continue to wear a night-splint until she's done growing. She has a pin in her wrist still that will stay for about 6 months. The procedure to remove it, while technically "surgery" requiring anesthesia, is very quick and easy.  Looks like we'll do that early summer.  When Sadie heard that, she at first wasn't happy with that idea, but her dr. assured her that 1 week later she could go back to swimming and whatever other summer fun she wanted to do.

Sadie relaxing before surgery

Sadie's arm pre-op
Several hours after surgery. Trying to talk to Hannah, but was feeling too yucky.
Morning after - feeling much better and out of bed
Hey nice nurses and doctors - I'm good now so help me break free of this place!
See? I needed to get home so I could help Barbie perform surgery on my dog.  Now that he has a fixator - no running or being active!
A couple weeks later - my new Christmas cast!
I can not say enough nice things about everyone involved in her care.  Her surgeon is first of all a top-notch surgeon. And he's a good doctor and communicator.  He answered quite a few e-mails from me during the 4 months she had her fixator.  He has encouraged me and encouraged Sadie, even addressing part of an e-mail to her directly telling her how proud he was of her for dealing so well with the fixator. Then, after surgery she got a card in the mail from him telling her what a great job she did.  And he has worked so well with us being out of town, helping set up x-rays locally that we could e-mail him so we didn't have to take quite as many trips.  And when I asked if he could do surgery the day after Thanksgiving because we were off of school and work already, he agreed. I didn't learn until later that he really did that as a favor to us. He wasn't doing any other surgeries that day. Sadie was his only patient. He came in and did her surgery, set things up for her to be admitted, talked to me, and then left to go sell Christmas trees with his son's baseball team.  His assistant is also super sweet and personable and very responsive to any questions I have. Even the x-ray people there and the "cast guy" (I'm sure he has a more official title!) are great. They are never in a rush and take the time to do things right and take the time to talk and explain everything to us.  After her last surgery, his resident even left me his cell phone number so we could reach him immediately instead of going through the on-call service the night after surgery. Okay, so *everything* isn't perfect. The OT's in the office next door who make her splints are a little hurried and grumpy sometimes. They really get grumpy when we show up for a splint without an appointment. But it can't be helped - we need a new splint when the dr. says we need a new one and I do let them know when I suspect we will need one. But I don't always know.  And the OT's billing practices leave a bit to be desired. But we keep going to them because they do a good job and do it right.  And so far, I've been able to work out any billing conflicts with them even if it takes a while. So I can live with them being a little grumpy from time to time. But overall, I'm so thankful to have this group of medical folks on Sadie's team and it is so worth the back and forth driving to Atlanta. (AND, as a bonus, construction on I-20 has suddenly gotten so much better!)  Plus, Sadie likes that we stop for lunch or supper (depending on appt time) on the way back usually. This time: Golden Corral where I let her have the very rare treat of cotton candy!. And yes, she totally travelled to her appointment in her pajamas, robe, and santa hat.


Sunday, December 01, 2013

Sadie's Birthday, Halloween, Fixator Update


Sadie celebrated her 8th birthday in October with a science party. She had a blast and I think her friends did too.














For Halloween, I took a surgeon and a hot dog out trick or treating.  We went with our good friends and had a blast hanging out with them!


Sometime early-mid November, we reached day 100 of the external fixator. So, we celebrated it, complete with muffins in the morning and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.  We also started the last 20 days countdown with an advent lego calendar. Only, we weren't counting down to Christmas yet, but rather to surgery day. Sadie has been a trooper and handled the fixator so very well.  It did start to get a little old at the end. So we started spicing things up by decorating her fixator cover a little more often.







This girl amazes me with her resilience!  Thanksgiving and surgery pictures coming soon. :)

Sunday, October 06, 2013

A Little of Everything

So, here's the short synopsis of our last few weeks: school, birthday, homework, prison, ears, arms, hands, kidneys, jaws, teeth, dance, brownies, and more.

Longer version...
Hannah
Hannah enjoyed her 10th birthday celebration. Can't believe this girl is 10!!! She had some friends from her girl scout troop come spend the night and they stayed up all night and had a blast.

Hannah also had the tube put in her left ear mid-September. She did great with that. The ear drops afterwards were not so fun, but she got through them and has been fine since. I'm not convinced it has helped her hearing a lot yet. Maybe? So hard to tell sometimes. We'll go back to have it checked in a few weeks.



Sadie
Well let's see. The fun stuff first. Sadie is LOVING 2nd grade. She loves her teachers, her school, and her friends.  She's been out of anything active since her surgery August 2nd (including dance, PE, recess). So that's been her only "bummer", but she's handled it well. She did become a brownie Girl Scout, something she's been wanting to do.  Her leaders and troop all seem super sweet.  So far, they've had their bridging ceremony and 1 meeting.  I just brought her home from the meeting and she told me all about it and said "I love love love my troop!".  I think it will be a really good experience for her.



She continues to do amazingly well with her fixator.  With the exception of 1 bad day last week, she's rarely mentioned it hurting or causing any pain. She just goes on with her happy self.  We're cleaning the pin sites twice daily and turning it once daily. But we haven't had to go to Atlanta quite as much this past few weeks. We've started getting local xrays and e-mailing them to her surgeon. He's really good about responding and telling me what adjustments to make. The latest is that I have about 3 more days of turning to do and then we should be done. Then I'll schedule her next surgery to remove the fixator and centralize her wrist.




Meanwhile, Sadie now has a new nepherologist.  The short version of the story is the previous dr. was good. I believe the information he gave me was accurate and that he was caring for Sadie well.  But for whatever reason, I wasn't thrilled with communication, especially if I had a question or needed something outside of our yearly visits.  And I just sensed a nudging to look elsewhere.  So when I needed a letter from him for upcoming surgery and it was proving challenging to get, I looked elsewhere.  Sadie had her first visit with the new neph last week and it went great! I left with a better understanding of Sadie's kidneys (which are working great by the way), the name of her diagnosis which will be helpful for communicating with her other doctors (and which wasn't new, but I just never knew exactly what it was called), and a really good feeling. I loved the new doctor and his staff.  And less than 24 hours after our visit, I had the letter I needed for Sadie's upcoming surgery in my hands.  Sadie left with a lollipop from the receptionist and a chocolate chip cookie from another patient's family.  So she came out feeling good about it too. And yes, this picture below is how she made her grand entrance into the new office. :)

 And the BIG news for Sadie is her 8th birthday is coming next weekend.  She has a really fun party planned with a few friends. She's having a "Super Science Party".  Messy experiments, lab coats, and a chocolate fountain are in the plans.  Check back soon for pictures / update. :)

Prison
I had the wonderful opportunity last month to serve in a women's prison for Kairos. Those who know me know I've been involved in Kairos ministry for quite some time.  It's an incredible ministry and God amazes me every single time.  There are certain moments that get to me each time..the presentation of our paper prayer chain, where each link represents someone praying for the women, a very powerful Saturday evening "Forgiveness Service", and more. But this time the moment that touched my heart the most was a very simple, easy-to-miss one.  We had been at the prison for 2.5 days (starting Thursday afternoon). And the team was singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" on Sunday morning, our last day.  While we were singing, the 36 participants were coming into the prison chapel to join us for the day. They were singing, marching, dancing, and laughing.  It was a very upbeat moment. And everyone of them walked, danced, or marched by me as we sang to them and the look on their faces was priceless. They were changed ladies, touched by the grace of God. They were most definitely not the same people that had walked into that same chapel on Thursday.  And we were also not the same people that had walked in there as well. It was just a beautiful moment of seeing God's grace in action.  If you read this and smiled (or even if you didn't), will you please take a moment to stop and pray for them?  For we know that they were changed, but their environment was not.  And they have the challenge of trying to live this new life out in the midst of a difficult, dark, and bitter environment surrounding them. Please pray that they will lean on Christ and seek His face always.  I can't wait to go back!!!






Sunday, August 25, 2013

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

So, some of you know that Hannah has a fluctuating hearing loss that's recently gotten worse.  And I've had some interesting questions and comments about it. "Can she not hear me when I talk?", "She seems to hear fine", "I've never noticed her not hearing".  So, those are fair comments because really, she does so well most of the time. So here's my understanding of all this with what I'm sure is probably an oversimplified and maybe not totally accurate biology / anatomy lesson thrown in.  If you want to skip the anatomy and personal history - just go the last two paragraphs. :)

First, many young children get lots of ear infections. That's why tubes in ears are so prevalent. And besides true "infections", many young kids have fluid collect behind their eardrums.  That fluid can cause a temporary hearing loss until it drains out. It drains out through our eustachian tubes.  Most of our Eustachian tubes angle downwards to help the fluid drain out. But in very young kids, the tubes are closer to horizontal. That's why they tend to get fluid "stuck" behind their eardrums and sometimes that fluid gets infected.  So sometimes, doctors put tubes in their eardrums. Then when the fluid can't drain down the eustachian tube, it drains out the tube. As kids grow older (and bigger), their eustachian tubes begin sloping more downwards and fluid can drain out the normal way. And while anyone of any age *can* have an ear infection, this all explains why it's more common in younger kids and why many kids seem to outgrow the problem as they get older.

Remember this diagram from school? (except we called those 3 bones in the middle ear the hammer, anvil, and stirrup)



Now, kids with cleft palate have some anatomy differences besides the obvious hole in lip / roof of mouth. Their eustachian tubes are also more horizontal at a young age. And they also begin to slope downwards as they grow. But it takes much longer on average for them to slope downwards enough to outgrow the collection of fluid behind their ears.  Besides that, their eustachian tubes don't always work as well. It's called "eustachian tube dysfunction" and it happens to other kids too. It's just fairly prevalent in kids with clefts.  Think about how you may "pop" your ears when they feel stopped up. Hannah can't do that and it's because of the eustachian tube dysfunction.  Interestingly, I've recently heard that sometimes Asian kids also take longer to grow out of this eustachian tube dysfunction.  If so, then Hannah has 2 factors coming into play there.

Most kids with clefts see ENT regularly, especially at younger ages. All our visits to the cleft team include a check by ENT and audiology and that's pretty standard.  But we also see them a lot more often than the whole team. So - to make a really long story short, here's the basics of what happened. First, Hannah had fluid in her ears due to the eustachian tube dysfunction. Tubes were placed in her ears. They lasted 3 years. They never fell out like they were supposed to. They worked mostly well and hearing was normal / borderline normal during those 3 years. Sometimes they got blocked with wax and then her hearing would temporarily decrease until the dr. cleaned the wax out. But mostly she was fine. After 3 years, her ENT removed the tubes surgically because when left in that long, they can start to cause more problems. When they were removed she was left with a hole in each eardrum that never healed - something that happens to 2-4% of kids with ear tubes.  BUT, the holes were a blessing in disguise and acted as "natural tubes".  Hannah kept those holes for 2 years and during that time she had a fluctuating hearing loss that fluctuated between normal, borderline, and mild loss.  A year and a half ago (at 8 years old), her ENT repaired the hole in her left eardrum.  The repair went beautifully and Hannah has a perfect, complete eardrum. BUT, it immediately developed fluid again.  And slowly over the last year, her hearing has decreased, in both ears. It's been fluctuating between borderline, mild, and dipping occassionally to "moderate" loss.

Well, last month she had what seemed to be a pretty bad double ear infection. And I knew her hearing wasn't good then. But after several rounds of antibiotics (oral and drops), and having her ears cleaned and suctioned (as fun as it sounds), they finally cleared up. And interestingly, the final word was that as bad as her ears were, neither one was a true middle-ear infection (which is what she's gotten in the past). The right ear had a piece of an ear plug that had broken off and gotten stuck inside (no wonder she couldn't hear!). And the left ear was an outer ear infection / swimmer's ear. And it seemed to me that her hearing improved when all that was cleared up. So, we went back to the ENT Tuesday just for the purpose of checking that this ear infection was in fact gone. And it was completely cleared up. That's the good news.  Hannah will be 10 this week and is pretty much past the age where many kids with clefts are able to have workable eustachian tubes. So, the ENT went ahead and sent us to audiology to check her hearing and ear pressures. If all was good in the left ear (the one that was repaired), he would schedule her to repair the right eardrum.

But, all was not good.  She still had a flat tympanogram (fluid) for the left ear. And her hearing test for *both* ears was the worst they have been. Now, the good thing is her "bone conduction" tests are normal.  That means that when a device is placed against the bone behind her ear and sound is delivered that way (bypassing her middle ear), her hearing is normal.  That indicates that her hearing loss is "conductive" which means it's a problem in the middle ear, not a problem with her inner ear and nerves.   The good news is most conductive hearing losses are not permanent and many can be fixed medically. So..back to the ENT (just across the hall) who of course said he would *not* be scheduling Hannah for repair of her right eardrum and instead, it was time to put a tube in her left eardrum again. There are risks with that because he's going into an already repaired eardrum. But at this point, the risks of not doing it are greater. He thinks her hearing may go back to almost-normal in that ear with the tube.  I asked why her right ear had just as much of a hearing loss. He said it might still be a little inflamed from the infection last month but also the longer she had a hole, the more likely her hearing could get worse. But the solution to that is to repair the hole, which he can't do because she still hasn't outgrown the eustachian tube dysfunction. If he repaired her right eardrum now, he'd be in the same position of having to go back in and put a tube in again.  The hope is she might be nearing a growth spurt sometime in the not-so-distant future and the increased growth could finally help her eustachian tubes. But we will wait a good while before attempting another repair.

What this means is that her hearing will likely continue to fluctuate for quite some time. And as it's been fluctuating at a greater level lately, it's very likely that will continue at least for the right ear. The left ear may fluctuate more mildly after the tube, but that remains to be seen for sure. So, how bad is her hearing? Her hearing at the lower frequencies went from "moderately severe" at the lowest to "moderate". At the higher frequencies it was "mild" to "borderline normal".  This means she has a harder time with lower frequency sounds.  Interestingly, people tend to whisper at higher frequencies. So sometimes, Hannah might hear something as soft as a whisper. But other times, she doesn't hear something that seems so clear to others. There are certain speech sounds she hears fine. But she has trouble with other speech sounds.  She misses word endings often (and has even when she had a milder loss). So for example, she may not know if you said "she walks" or "she walked". When you have a face-to-face conversation with her in a somewhat quiet environment, she may hear everything you say. But the farther away from you she is, the more she will struggle. The more background noise there is, the more she will struggle.  Also, she may struggle more later in the day. Sometimes, she *can* hear things but it takes a lot more focus and attention than it might for others. So that could explain why she's often tired at the end of the day. Even last spring, she'd get in the car after school and need some "down time" before she could engage in conversation again. She does well, but it takes effort. She's also pretty good at using context to figure out what she might have missed. She does this naturally without always realizing she missed something. For example, if I say "Hannah go upstairs and brush your teeth" - she may hear most but not every sound in those words. But because I've said that to her often, her mind "fills in" what her ears might have missed.  This works pretty well for topics that are familiar. But for novel topics, it becomes difficult.  If you took your favorite book that you've read several times before and this time you could only see 4 out of every 5 words, it would be a little of a challenge. You might have to put some effort into reading it, but you could probably get through it and understand it well because it's so familiar to you. But then imagine taking an economics text book (unless you're an economics person) and being able to only read 4 out of every 5 words. For that 5th word, you might even see half the letters, but because the word is a new, unfamiliar term, you can't quite figure out what the word is. It would be much harder to comprehend. Then imagine that there were lines and arrows drawn all over that book that pointed to phrases written in the margin that had nothing to do with the book.  It would be distracting.  That's kind of like Hannah trying to listen to her teacher in class teach new information while hearing the kid behind her shuffling papers, the air conditioning, the kid giggling beside her, etc. It's a lot to sort out and takes a lot of effort. Add to that that her hearing loss if a "fluctuating loss". So some days she really might hear "just fine" (relatively). But other days, it only appears that she is hearing fine, when in fact she is not. So that pretty much sums up Hannah's hearing. She will have the tube placed in her left ear mid-September and I hope that will help. Meanwhile, we're working on some other strategies to help compensate in the meantime.

And how has Hannah handled on this? Well, it depends. She's highly irritated over the fact that she needs a tube in her left ear.  On day 1, "irritated" wasn't really the right word. "Furious" might be more accurate. She says it makes no sense because she had a perfect eardrum, then "we" (because you know, I was totally "helping" and it's my fault according to her!) created a hole when we put a tube in, then we took the tube out, then we fixed the hole, and now we want to PUT A HOLE BACK IN THE EARDRUM?? Yeah, I kind of agree. Makes no sense when you look at it that way. But it is reality. And she's better with it now. (i.e. "irritated" rather than "furious".)  But the news that she has a more significant hearing loss? Doesn't bother her at all. I mean, her hearing is no different after being told than it was before being told.  It all just seems normal to her.  And in the grand scheme of things, this is not a major problem. It really isn't. She will need a little help especially in not missing instruction at school. That's all. But it's totally "doable" and she will go on with her singing, laughing, flipping, dancing "tween" self.  Her birthday coming up this week is a much bigger deal. As it should be. :)



Sunday, August 11, 2013

Update on Sadie

Sadie's surgery went well overall.  We arrived at the hospital and she quickly got her vitals done and was in a room.  Surgery was delayed just a bit because the anesthesiologist had some concerns.  You may remember that Sadie has some mild kidney issues. Her kidneys are located in slightly different places than is typical. The left kidney shrunk in size significantly between the time she was 4 and 6 years old.  It is likely not contributing much in terms of function. But her right kidney is growing well and compensating well for the lack of the other one. She takes 1 medication for mild metabolic acidosis (a kidney-related issue) but her actual kidney function is normal. There are no side effects and according to her dr - no precautions or restrictions for her. (Except we avoid NSAID's such as ibuprofen because they can be hard on kidneys). Well, when I filled out all the pre-anesthesia forms I put all that information in the appropriate places and listed the medicine, dose, etc. I included her nephrologist's contact info. Why do we fill those forms out? They certainly weren't read (or if they were, they weren't read by the anesthesiologist). He seemed genuinely surprised and concerned to find out she took this medication.  So he wanted to do lab work before the surgery to check that all was good. While I was confident (based on knowledge from her other doctors) that all was fine, I still appreciated that he wanted to be careful. They did the lab work and it all came back great.

Sadie was quite the charmer the whole morning.  She refused to lie down for the blood draw and said she wanted to watch. She held out her right arm and pointed and said "here's where you need to stick me.".  When the anesthesiologist left me and asked if I had any further questions, Sadie piped up and said "I do".  She then proceeded to ask him "Are you going to flavor the gas that makes me go to sleep? Because last time you rubbed chapstick on it?". He asked her if she wanted him to do that. She replied "no. It doesn't really help. It just makes it smell like stinky chapstick. I think it's better if you just forget that." lol!

So - surgery went well and she did great.  But then in recovery and post-op, the decision was made to limit her IV fluids.  Now, in the past Sadie has had a tendency to get nausea after surgery. It's generally mild though. And what her nurses have done in the past is give her extra IV fluids before discharge and that really seems to help prevent or minimize the nausea. (Which is much appreciated as we have a 3 hour drive home!). But this time, they not only wouldn't give her extra fluid, they wouldn't even give her the normal amount. They limited it pretty significantly and said they were ordered to do that because she takes sodium bicarb (her medicine). Now, they perhaps had a very valid reason for this..but they couldn't say what it was and I really don't think so. From everything I know..the risk of dehydration is a bigger risk than giving her too much fluid. With normal kidney function, she has absolutely no fluid restrictions in normal daily life.  When Sadie first woke up, she was okay. In fact, she seemed to be doing really well. She drank just a couple sips of juice and then they started preparing discharge papers.  As soon as she got in the car, she threw up. Then she seemed okay for a while. She had a drink in the back with her, but she didn't drink but a couple sips. She mostly slept all the way home.  But once home, I started pushing her to drink and she couldn't keep anything down.  She was also throwing up her pain medicine which later in the evening meant she was in pain.  I called her surgeon's office and got the on-call doctor, who happened to be her surgeon's resident. He had been in surgery with Sadie that day so he knew her and her situation. I asked him to call in some anti-nausea medicine for her and he did. He was very nice and left his cell phone number and told me to call him back if we had any other problems. The medicine did the trick. She was able to finally start drinking a little and keep her pain medicine down. She slept most of the night and the next morning, she was totally acting like herself again.

My concern is that her next surgery (in 2-3 months) will be longer. I really don't want them limiting her fluid again because I'm convinced that's what made the day so rough for her. So I will be calling her nephrologist this week and asking him to send something both to her surgeon and a copy to me indicating what, if any, precautions she needs and indicating that it is okay and even needed for her to have the extra fluid. (If he agrees and I'm not missing anything. But I think he will agree). I spoke with her surgeon about it as well and he said yes, have the neph send him the info but also he can plan to keep her overnight next time to make sure she gets what she needs.  So, we have a plan. :)

Meanwhile, Sadie has this lovely metal bar attached to her arm.  For the first 5 days it was bandaged.  She did well remaining mostly inactive, except for the fact that the night before we went to get the bandage removed, she fell down the stairs. Down 9 stairs to be exact and crashed into the shelves at the bottom! Um, that's not really a good thing. But her instincts kicked in and she fell protecting the surgery arm. It scared her more than anything and she wasn't hurt. But still..I'd appreciate it if she didn't do that anymore!

So, we got the bandage off and I got instructions for her surgeon on activity level, cleaning the pin sites, and how and when to turn the fixator for the next week.  Sadie of course continued to charm everyone there and somehow left with a pile of candy! Then we went next door to see the OT's who normally make her splints. This time they were charged with making her a splint / protective cover for the fixator.  The lady we were working with was not thrilled to have this task and spent the first 10 minutes telling me she didn't have any idea how to do that.  But, I had some ideas to throw out. And then she finally got a co-worker to come brainstorm with her and the co-worker had some ideas.  Finally a plan was created and she started creating this contraption, um, I mean splint. She did it while mumbling and muttering under her breath at first, but slowly became more personable as a workable solution started to take shape. So Sadie now has a VERY custom splint - one of a kind! The OT was in such a foul mood in the beginning that she didn't even give Sadie a choice of colors like they normally do. But that's okay, because we took the plain white splint and added some of our own "bling" to it.  I have to appreciate them though because the OT's there are really good at what they do AND they know how to bill insurance the right way to get it covered. (A problem I ran into locally). And they work with the surgeon next door (who I love!). But they are not always the most thrilled to see us.  I figure they should be happy to see Sadie - her needs dictate they learn new skills and expand their creativity! ha! (Of course, when it comes to OT's, I'm kind of spoiled because in my job I work with the best OT's and they manage to be good at their jobs AND be friendly!).

So, the very next day - Sadie woke up and I could tell her hand had been bleeding at the pin sites. Not a lot, but that's not really a good thing. But being so early in the process I wasn't sure if it might be normal. So I took photos and e-mailed them to her surgeon. He responded back rather quickly and said to see how it did in a day or two. If it continued, we could stop the turning of the fixator to give it more time to "heal". But regardless he wanted to start her on antibiotics. They are (as they admit) very paranoid about infections with the pin sites of these fixators. Better to be safe than sorry. So, his assistant called in some antibiotics and she started it that night.

Since then, no problems. No more bleeding or signs of infection. Everything is going well. Now the biggest challenge is reminding her not to carry or lift things with that arm and keeping her from falling down the stairs again! That keeping my very active tumbling, flipping, dancing, leaping older child from doing those things while standing in the same room as Sadie! (Which is actually a challenge her grandparents have for a few days as the girls are there having fun and being spoiled while I return to work tomorrow!). We will return to Atlanta on Wednesday for an x-ray and further instructions on when and how to turn the fixator. (There's multiple places you can turn it - we are going one direction this week..will do a slightly different direction next week). I also hope to find out a little more on how long he expects this progress might last (he can't give me an exact time..it depends how she responds).

Sadie amazes me though with her resilience, her confidence, and her bravery!

Meanwhile, Hannah's had her own little medical issue going on. She basically got ear infections in both ears the first of July. And they are just now clearing up. She had three rounds of  antibiotics and then the day before Sadie's surgery, Hannah had an ENT appointment to try to get to the bottom of it. Both ears were red and draining. yuck! She got her ears suctioned and cleaned (a process she did not enjoy) and they found the problem in the right ear: a piece of an earplug had broken off and got stuck against her eardrum.  I had said her hearing had decreased - now we know why! It was removed rather easily. Nothing unusual found in the left ear, but that eardrum was red, infected, and draining too. She started antibiotic ear drops which she hates! But she got through it and now her ears look better, are no longer draining, and she is definitely hearing better.  We go back in a couple weeks just to double check, but hopefully she finally over all that.
(just for fun - happy girl!)

 (preop)

 (day after surgery)

 (So adaptable - playing cards!)

 (a blinged-out splint / cover)

Summer Recap

Well, it's official. Summer is over. I start back to work Monday and the girls start the following Monday. We had lots of fun things, and some not-so-fun things. I completed some projects (well, okay, maybe 1 project). Other projects that were planned are now getting pushed back to the next break. :) But overall, it was a good summer. So here's our summer 2013 recap. Mostly in pictures.

June







Notable things in June: We had lots of free time to swim, play, play games, do crafts, hang out with cousins, and just enjoy being together. I loved June! We also spent a weekend at grandma and grandpa's house. Sadie took 5 days of swim lessons from an incredible instructor. She went from not swimming at all to being able to swim the length of the pool freestyle, the width of the pool backstroke ,floating on her back for 1 minute and treading water for 30 seconds. So proud!! She still needs some practice before I'm confident with her swimming away from me, but she made HUGE progress.

July











July brought more fun. It was the busier of the two months though with girls and I going every which way. There was a family trip to Mobile Bay which was lots of fun! The girls had great experiences at camp. They had VBS. I had a workshop in Huntsville.  And Hannah got her "new room" she's been wanting.  I redid her room while she was at camp as an early birthday present for her.