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Katie's caps post op stuff

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2001 10:08 am
by christy
Hey everyone! We sure are glad to be home from the caps at TCH.

Dr. Nath and his new resident (Dr. Yacoub, who is very nice and loves to pass out candy to the kiddos) now evaluate every child's needs and the post op splinting changes. We have to do 8 /8 (Dr. Nath says to find as many ways as possible to do the second 8 but he does know the kids have a harder time getting back into the splint then. He thought it was great to find out we just wait until Katie is asleep and relaxed and goes right back into it with no problem.) Anyway, Dr. Yacoub told me to make sure we sent in the video 2 weeks after the splint is off completely and to remind Lisa T that the splint time had been changed to 16 weeks as it was new and she didn't know about it yet. Makes me wonder if they are changing it for everyone now as Cheryl said they had discussed it but she didn't realize Nath had changed it. Other than that everything else is just like the mod as far as changing and ROM and then the therapy routines.

Katie is up and running (she wore the nurses out just watching her the day after surgery running the halls from 5 am to 11 pm yelling "I wak, I wak". Sleep habits are definitely out the window--she was up until 10 last night and up every couple of hours after that.

As far as what this will do for her--she may or may not need the osteo but I have a good hunch she won't. And even if she does, this surgery will slow down the deterioration of her humeral head. And if it works--yipee! and there will be that much less damage done than if we waited months or years. She has lost no strength in her arm--ask Kim, it is all she can do to hold it in position while we bath her! And she is spreading those fingers wide (she is still gaining from primary and mod) and straight now.

Cheryl did tell us that the larger kids need a bar under their arm to help hold it up as the splint would not hold the pressure. And we have to be more careful of falls with the position she is in now--coming down of that elbow bend could be quite nasty.

SOrry so long everyone, just wanted to share.

Re: Katie's caps post op stuff

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2001 7:02 pm
by francine
Christy - thanks for the update....I'm so glad to hear that Katie is doing her normal kinda thing already.

When you get a chance, can you give us more details about the pain and more details about why the extra length in time for the splinting?

Also - do you have any pictures of her you'd like to share? if you do - can you email them to me and can I put it on the splint page on Maia's site?

There are a few of us waiting to have this surgery on our children so I guess we are looking to you for a lot of guidance. Share as much as you can ok?

how is bathing going? and how are you achieving that?
how about clothing? is she on any special pain medication? is she still having pain?

big hugs,
now the countdown begins right?
-francine