Little Luella: August 2016

What a week!! The kids and I had fun on Tuesday night "camping" in our backyard in a tent. They all get a kick out of "roughing" it and that's about as much camping as I can do! We stayed up late and watched Toy Story and woke up early to the sounds of the birds chirping! The kids all had fun on Wednesday playing outside and enjoying the nice weather. I was doing some work in the garage in the afternoon when I heard Luella start crying. She was on the trampoline with Ashlyn and Ryker and she was wailing. It's not uncommon for her to exaggerate an injury. I came out of the garage and told the kids to come in so I could figure out what happened. Luella didn't want to move so I went to get her. I carried her in the house and set her down on the bench in the kitchen and once I got a look at her knee/leg I knew something wasn't quite right. She was in a lot of pain so I called the clinic and got her right in to the on-call doctor. After a series of excruciating x-rays it was determined she had a growth plate fracture and needed to be seen by an orthopedic doctor in Sioux Falls right away. They splinted her leg to immobilize it and got her ready to go.

Jim and I opted to drive her there ourselves vs. the ambulance. The experience in Sioux Falls was a bit frustrating with lots of waiting only to be sent home to return the next morning to see the orthopedic doctor and have surgery. Sleeping on Wednesday night was a little challenging but Luella did okay and we got on our way Thursday morning.

We finally got to meet with the orthopedic surgeon and get more details as to what happened and what they could do to fix it. Basically Luella had a fracture to the growth plate above the tibia in her left leg. He was going to try to do a closed reduction (no incision) to put things back in place and then they would cast her leg. If he wasn't able to move things into the right place he would need to open up the leg and then there was the possibility of needing pins or wires to hold things in place.

I was able to walk back with her until they had her asleep. This mama was a little weepy leaving my baby back in the OR but she did great! Thankfully a closed reduction worked and they were able to get the cast on right away. And boy does she have a cast! That pink cast goes from the very top of her leg all the way down to her toes! She handled the anesthesia fine and we were able to see her after an hour or so.

After recovering awhile, meeting with home medical and getting a little walker and wheel chair we were able to be on our way. Luella impressed everyone in the hospital with her walker skills! She caught on right away! And we now have visible tracks around the house from the wheel chair! :-)

Unfortunately Luella is dealing with a fair amount of pain, especially when it's getting close to her next dose of pain meds. She was able to fall right to sleep last night and was up around 12:30 to use the bathroom (which is a MAJOR challenge). She got right back to sleep but at 3:30 woke up in a lot of pain. We gave her more pain meds then but it was taking awhile for those to kick in so I laid with her to snuggle and try to distract her from the pain. Around 4:30 she was finally settling down and I slipped out of her bed to let her sleep..... 10 minutes later she had a seizure. :-( She was really convulsing and her poor little leg was jerking so much. I was about to give her rescue meds but thankfully the seizure stopped. She slept well then until about 8:00 this morning. When she got up though she was so sore and it took awhile to move.

She's been in great spirits despite all she's been through. She did ask at bedtime last night if it was time to take off the cast!! I don't think she understands just how long she has to have it... but maybe that's a good thing! She will be in the cast for at least 6 weeks and then maybe a brace for another 2 weeks. She can not bear any weight on that leg so it'll be a long 2 months!!

Unfortunately we had to cancel our vacation plans to Duluth. We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow. That vacation involved a LOT of walking. We'll have to see if we can find something else to do instead.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Just another bump in the road but we are so thankful to be dealing with this at the end of summer and not the beginning!