Sunday, August 5, 2012

When it rains it pours

First off I just want to warn you this is quite a story. It begins last monday when I went to primary childrens for a check-up on Crue's head. They did an ultrasound and found that the fluid had grown in his head and it was time for the shunt. It was scheduled for 7:30 the next morning. They also discovered that he had thrush so the plan was for me to go to his pediatrician to get it checked before surgery. When I got home I noticed that his left thigh had become swollen and red. So away to the pediatrician I go and of course, I get a flat tire on the way. What else could go wrong? I call Joe bawling and he came from work to rescue me. Finally getting to the doctor 30 minutes late he gives us a prescription for Crue's thrush and can't decide what is wrong with his leg so he advises us to head back to primary childrens and get him checked into the ER to see what the problem is and see if he can actually go for surgery or not. So home we go to pack our bags and head for Salt Lake. By this time it is 7:00 and we were supposed to be checked into the Ronald Mcdonald House by 630. By the time we get checked in and get to the ER its 10. They evaluate Crue's leg and decide to do an x-ray. We were completely shocked when the x rays came back and we were told that his left femur was broken. Then we were told that the trauma team needed to come meet with us, they had a few questions they needed to ask...at this point we were hysterical. How in the heck is my 2 week old sons leg broken and why are we being questioned for it? We felt as if they were accusing us for his leg being broken. We were told it is just mandatory but it still makes you feel like a criminal. After about 2 hours (2 a.m) of sitting in the ER and about 6 needles going in my poor baby boys arm we were sent up to the infant unit to get some rest before his surgery at 7:30 that morning. At about 6 a.m. the docs came in and got him all prepped and he was sent down to the OR. We sat in the waiting room for about 2 hours (which felt like a lifetime) before we were finally called down to the recovery room. Dr. K (the neurosurgeon) said everything went beautifully. I was so relieved to have my baby boy back in my arms, I was so grateful that everything went well. We were sent back up to our room and a few hours later the trauma team came in and asked us to go with them to the conference room to have a talk. They asked us a number of questions about Crue, and about his care at the NICU and if there were any signs of miss care at the hospital. Joe and I were at a loss, we had no idea how this could have happened. Everyone at the NICU had treated us awesome, we had no answers. Well after about 20 minutes of questioning we were told that there were a number of smaller fractures in both legs along with his broken femur. They told us that the ultrasound shows that the breaks old and that new bone had already started to grow back which takes 7 to 12 days. That meant that it happened sometime between birth and the day before we went home…we were shocked. Why was this happening to our poor little guy. How is it that they didn't know his legs were broken? Why wasn't our doctor more careful when she was delivering him? They knew before they took us in the conference room that his legs were broken before we even took him home, yet they still questioned us. We were so emotionally and physically drained by this point, and we couldn't help but be angry with everything that was going on. We were then told that they wanted to do some tests on him to see if he had any kind of bone disease that would cause his bones to break easy. So the next day we met with a genetics counselor and they took some labs on baby Crue…poor guy was poked again 3 times :( Everything came back normal and the genetics counselor said he doesn't see anything that would indicate any kind of bone disorder...few. Talk about stressful. Next they came to put Crue's harness on. The harness is the best option for his broken legs. It is a pain when it comes to changing diapers and clothes but they said it is better than a cast. Supposably his legs will be healed in 2-3 weeks! Pretty crazy knowing he has a broken femur! Oh and I almost forgot to mention the awesome people we had to share a room with...They were delightful!! They were in there with their little boy who had several broken bones and had to have a feeding tube. well during our stay with them we heard a lot of F words and quite a few outburst from the mother. Come to find out the hospital had called CPS on her and she was having her baby taken away. I'm not passing judgment or anything, but in the short amount of time that I was around her she seemed a bit crazy. To say the least it was an eventful 2 days in the hospital but we are home now and we couldn't be happier. Here are a few pics...the orange stuff all over him is iodine from surgery...just fyi. The first thing we thought of was his red hair like Easton's!




This is the harness for his poor leg