follow up

It’s a good thing we ended up making our 1 month follow up with another doctor.  The short story is his staff way overbooked him for our original 1 month post cast off appointment.

I left and came home to book another appointment at the main location in the medical center; the first appointment was at the annex close to our house (which is known to always overbook but I forgot since the last time we used the annex was a couple of years ago).

His rescheduled 1 month appointment was supposed to be this week, which would be more like 6 weeks later but his dad scheduled a follow-up with another doctor last week.    So his 4 week appointment ended up being at 5 weeks with another doctor.

I kept the rescheduled one with his original orthopedic doctor though, which was supposed to be this week.  I had a phone call today that they had to cancel it because he needs to be in surgery so they gave me the next available appointment – July 7th.

Which would be more like 10 or 11 weeks for what was originally supposed to be 4 weeks.

My take-away on that is 2 things.  Glad we rescheduled with another doctor so we could have the follow-up x-rays done and know that he’s on track.  And two, apparently the 1 month follow-up isn’t as crucial or they would’ve fit us in before then.

It all worked out at least.

it IS shorter!

Pony, you are one smart woman. I sure learned a thing or two today (just a reminder, our family had no broken bones when I was growing up, or since then so I know nothing about them except our recent adventure).

Turns out, his right leg is a bit shorter.

On purpose!

When the guys came home from the doctor’s appointment and he told me they had set it shorter on purpose, it was a “WHAT ON EARTH FOR???” shout heard ’round the world.

Turns out broken bones grow much faster than non-broken bones, so they set it shorter – on purpose – so they’ll end up the same after a year’s time. Aspiring basketball players, don’t try this trick on both legs; it’s not worth it.

This was a different doctor than the one we had been seeing, but he backed up with words what the first one did with action – assured my husband that this was actually standard procedure.

The boy is thrilled to be cleared to go back to gymnastics finally! He got a written note from the doctor (my insistence) so all is well with the world.

pins

Pony, I completely get what you’re saying; actually it’s a question we get a lot – did the break affect his overall height (probably, because it affected his growth plate), will one leg end up being shorter (not expected at his age since he’s still growing), and why didn’t they set it in pins (usually done with children over the age of 6 or over 100 pounds).

The reason it looks shorter is because he still has some stiffness in it, particularly first thing in the morning (just like adults when your joints feel swollen and sore after a long run the day before), as well as late in the evening after he’s had a lot of activity.

Stiffness in joints is caused by inactivity, and although for most of us that’s after the course of 8 hours’ sleep, in his case he still has some stiffness from over 2 months of not moving any of those joints – not just the femur that he broke, but that whole thing of the hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone, etc.

That children’s song really has some basis behind it – they are all connected, and since all of the bones were immobilized by the spica cast (sacrum – hip, femur – thigh, patella – knee, tibula, fibula – lower leg bones) all the surrounding joints are still stiff, not just the joints surrounding the broken bone.

Sometimes I forget who I’ve told what to, but we were told to expect the recovery to be roughly double the weeks he was in a cast; so it realistically may be mid-August or so before there’s not the noticeable limp. I should know a lot more after he has his follow-up appointment this week though.

5 weeks later

Just a progress report below. His dad is taking him for a follow-up visit next week. He was supposed to have one last week, but through no fault of his doctor, the people who schedule appointments at the annex near our house overbooked as usual and so we couldn’t get in to see the doctor.

I have every expectation he’ll be as good as new at some point. The time frame we were originally given was to expect it to be another 16-18 weeks after the cast came off before he was 100% back to normal.

We’re at a little over 5 weeks right now. Here’s a quick video I shot this evening of him running toward me. As you can see, his “run” is more like a “gallop” which is due to the stiffness in his leg still.

http://www.youtube.com/v/y97wrx7fDE0

x-ray recap

A copy of the x-rays came in the mail today.

Here is one from the day he broke his leg:

Here’s one from a week after he was in the spica cast:

Here’s one after he had been in the cast for a month:

And I think I’ve shown this one before – after 8 1/2 weeks, the day his cast came off:

3 week post cast-off

I have been videotaping him each week on Monday so this is a little outdated, but at 3 weeks after his cast came off, he is trying to run.

http://www.youtube.com/v/_evzMCoy5Fs