Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Forum for parents of injured who are seeking information from other parents or people living with the injury. All welcome
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ltm07
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:18 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: 13 week old with BPI to left arm, he has gained good movement in his hand and wrist, is getting strenght in his shoulder and can lift his arm up approx 30 degrees!!

Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Post by ltm07 »

Hi There,

My son is 5 mths old and he is booked for surgery on the 3rd March, our surgeons at the Children’s have said that there are no avulsions and are assuming that there is just scar tissue. So are going to do a graft/transfer.

I would really love to hear from parents who have a child that has had the surgery and how it went for your bubs and how your child's recovery is now (range of movement, etc).

If you have any photos etc that you are willing to email me that would be great also, so i can see what my lil' man will look like coming out of surgery!!

THanks!!!
gawilliams
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:47 am
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Daughter born 8/16/10 has OBPI in the right arm....First surgery(nerve graft) done at 5 months(performed by Dr. Kozin).... four avulsions, one rupture (at the spine)..... As of 4/9/11 still no movement in arm, wrist or hand. As June 2013, bicep, elbow, shoulder function active, flexing with gravity, still no wrist or hand/finger function.

Re: Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Post by gawilliams »

My daughter just had surgery by Dr. Kozin at Shriners in Philadelphia. She had surgery on 1/31/11 at 5.5 months old. They did an exploratory and she had four out of five avulsions. So they did a lot of transfers and grafting. I cant say what her outcome will be, honestly im scared to death of what it will be. Dr. Kozin believes she will get back about 60% function back in her arm/hand. The most she will probably be able to do is just hold an object. Im going to make another post to update everyone. Please read for more details. Good luck with everything, I know its going to be hard, but these little people (called our babies) are such fighters and survivors. :)
mkeimm
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:29 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: My daughter was born 9.29.09 and suffered a right bpi during delivery. She had a nerve transfer surgery at 4 months of age. Possible 2nd surgery for muscle transfer around age 2.

Re: Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Post by mkeimm »

Our daughter had her surgery (nerve transfer) when she was 4 months old, so only a month younger than your little one:) Her c5 and c6 were avulsions and I believe her c7 was stretched.

Before the surgery she could move her fingers and that was about it. Her arm just hung their with her hand in a waiters tip position. Lily is now 17 months old and we have slowly since the surgery seen great results! She can now move her arm up to her mouth but is still unable to self-feed with her affected arm. She can grasp things with her hands just fine, but is unable to supinate very well.

Recently we have seen her able to start moving her arm away from her body as well. She pretty much skipped the crawling phase and was strictly a scooter on her butt-very cute btw. As she transitioned from scooting to walking she did start to crawl a very small amount, but always preferred to scoot. I bring this up because I never really thought I'd ever see this happen. Oh, she can clap her hands now too. Never thought I'd see that either. We just had a year follow up appt from the time of surgery and Dr's said she is still healing from the surgery so sounds like more improvement to come.

We work on range of motion stretches with her in addition to continuing OT. There is talk of a possible shoulder tendon transfer in the near future as well to help get her arm above her head.

I will pray the surgery goes well and is a success!! I think it was the hardest thing to hand my little baby over to the Dr's for Lily's surgery. It was very scary. My husband and I thought it felt like an eternity waiting for her to get done. When she got out of surgery she was very swollen every where and tired. She really slept a lot. I don't think she was really in any pain. I hated seeing all the tubes and stuff they had attached to her. I do have some pics I could email you. Just need your address.
bpiparent
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:59 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: Daughter born 5/10, avulsion, tearing and stretching, 1st surgery 9/10.

Re: Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Post by bpiparent »

My daughter had surgery at 4.5 months she is now 9 months. She could lift her arm up not quite to waist level, but no elbow, wrist or finger movement and she had the waiters tip. C5 and C7 were ruptured whereas C6 was an avolusion. The day of surgery was horrible the Dr did his best to reassure us and I knew it was the best thing for my daughter but watching the nurse carry off my baby was heartbreaking. It was a long 7 hours we did get updates about every hour which helped and seeing all the other parents there in the waiting room made us feel less alone. When she came out of surgery she was tired and swollen and had all kinds of tubes and monitors all over and she was in a cast that looked like a nesting doll. Both her arms were crossed over her chest and in the cast and it went over her head so people said she looked like Kenny on south park. The first time I held her I was so scared and afraid I would hurt her little legs or that she would slip because there was just this solid cast with no arms or neck to cradle. I also have pictures too if you would like to see. She was in the cast for 4 weeks it was much harder on us than her. She rolled and used her feet a lot it didn't seem to bother her much. The nerves were taken from her legs but her legs did not seem to bother her either. I took her places with the cast on (mall, grocery store) I would put cute bottoms on her and most people thought it was a sweat shirt. I didn't see it, to me it looked like a cast and I always thought people were starting when in fact they weren't.
It has been 5 months since her surgery she has therapy 3x a week and she is back to where she was prior to surgery. It seems to take forever but in all my research it takes about 6 months for a child to get back to where they were before surgery and then up to two years to see the final outcome.
I hope everything works out for you and the surgery is successful!!!!
ltm07
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:18 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: 13 week old with BPI to left arm, he has gained good movement in his hand and wrist, is getting strenght in his shoulder and can lift his arm up approx 30 degrees!!

Re: Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Post by ltm07 »

Thank you soo much guys for your reply!!

In some way it's comforting to kow that there are mums out there that are going throught what we are now!!
Carolyn J
Posts: 3424
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 1:22 pm
Injury Description, Date, extent, surgical intervention etc: LOBPI. I am 77 yrs old and never had a name for my injuries until 2004 when I found UBPN at age 66.

My injuries are: LOBPI on upper body and Cerebrael Palsy on the lower left extremities. The only intervention I've had is a tendon transplant from my left leg to my left foot to enable flexing t age 24 in 1962. Before that, my foot would freeze without notice on the side when wearing heels AND I always did wear them at work "to fit in" I also stuttered until around age 18-19...just outgrew it...no therapy for it. Also suffered from very very low self esteem; severe Depression and Anxiety attacks started at menopause. I stuffed emotions and over-compensated in every thing I did to "fit in" and be "invisible". My injuries were Never addressed or talked about until age 66. I am a late bloomer!!!!!

I welcome any and all questions about "My Journey".
There is NO SUCH THING AS A DUMB QUESTION.
Sharing helps to Heal. HUGS do too.
Location: Tacoma WA
Contact:

Re: Surgery for my 5 mth old on 3rd March, Nerve Graft/transfer

Post by Carolyn J »

ITm007, I am praying for your son, his Medical Team and YOU too.

Please keep us updated on his surgery.
HUGZ
Carolyn J
LOBPI/72 ++
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