Tales from the Week 10/24-10/30

This week has been kind of eventful. I spent the beginning of it starting the ninja turtles costumes for the boys. Devin is pictured modeling part of one of the costumes on Tuesday. I was pretty pleased with how well they turned out and will post completed pictures for next week's blog. Devin loved putting the costume on, unlike his brother :).

 Justin spent another week doing drill team training and actually managed to injure himself one of those nights. Below is his mangled arm. He worked 1pm-2-3am this week again and what more can I say about drill team training? It is what it is. Justin also got his Crossfit lvl 1 certification this weekend.

Friday morning was the date for Devin's surgery. I was called on Thursday by the OR nurses with directions for Devin's fasting. He went from 6:30pm the night before to after his surgery around 9:30am without eating or drinking anything.
Devin's surgery was scheduled for 7:30 Friday morning and they asked that we arrive at the hospital at 5:45am, so we woke the boys up at 5, dropped Luke off to a friend's house, and left for the hospital. Devin was amazingly pleasant and happy go-lucky the entire time. We checked in, waited, and were brought to a room where we changed Devin into a gown and had his vitals taken. We were then escorted to a little play room where Devin enjoyed the toys and things started picking up. Devin's ortho doctor came in and talked to us (it was weird seeing him in scrubs instead of the normal dress shirt) about what would happen and we were then seen by two anesthesia doctors that asked us if it was ok to use a caudal block for anesthesia - we said ok, though in retrospect I should have asked what the hell that was since I had no idea. Turns out it is kind of like an epidural. Everyone loved Devin. As they were carrying him away to the operating room, he went smiling and his nurse just exclaimed how incredible Devin's temperament is. I must say after all this, I agree.


Around 9am Devin's ortho doctor came out to say he was done and brought us to a little room where he talked to us about what happened. He said that they preformed the procedure, and while it normally releases the ankle to move easily, this was not what happened with Devin. The doctor said that he had to push hard and stop at Devin's foot flexed back only ten degrees, because he was afraid that using more pressure would have broken bones. For a normal person, their range of motion should be 20 degrees flexed back and a surgery like this would have provided even more than that. The doctor looked us in the eyes and said that this was not the fix we all hoped for and that the probability of Devin's problem coming back is high; that we can expect surgery that is a little more complicated next time and that the huge problem Devin has is the gigantic chunk of scar tissue in his calf muscle that is acting like a big wad of gum and preventing his muscles from growing properly. The fact that our conservative doctor who doesn't mention anything unless he thinks it is going to be a problem said this right after surgery hit me hard. I cried a little in the waiting room and all those feelings of frustration that my little boy had this happen to him came back. It was worse when I saw him in the recovery room still under from the anesthesia.

I say all this with complete thankfulness that he is alive and with us because of the life-saving procedure that accidentally produced this injury. And I try not to let the fact that I feel bad for him show to Devin. He knows no different unless I show him. To Devin, this cast, the horrid stretching, uncomfortable e-stim therapy and scar massage are a normal part of his life. All the poking and prodding are par for the course and in spite of it all he smiles, so I should too. This is one of the most beautiful things for me to see and if I look for the positives, the lesson of perseverance and happiness in all circumstances is one of them.

Devin woke up about ten minutes after week go to the recovery room and has since been ok with the cast. He won't put weight on the foot yet, so he either crawls or demands to be carried around. He asked me a few times to take the cast off, but those requests are slowly disappearing. We made a few changes like cutting up the bottom of one of this pants and wrapping his cast to keep it clean when we go outside. He'll have it removed on December 1st. Since my anniversary and Christmas are going to be that month and Justin will be done with drill team training, I think this is going to be one of my happiest Christmas's ever.

I love this boy.