April 30, 2011

Grrrrr

Good day/Bad day?: ups & downs

We had a nice cookout with the Dittmars last night (thanks guys!) and on the way home my chest started feeling like it was on fire. Severe sunburn, pretty much. Had to sleep with a pillowcase under my shirt so no seams would rub on it. Then I woke up this AM achy and exhausted and couldn't shake the fatigue until late in the day after a long nap. Haven't had fatigue like that in a loooong time. Special thanks to Dawn, too, for helping out this afternoon so I could nap and Ben could accomplish things! But the evening has been better--Olive and I had ravioli, then dancing, a good bath and bedtime. BTW, my favorite Olive word these days is Cheerio (I have no idea to spell out how she pronounces it...)

Thanks for everyone who has expressed the same moral outrage about Olive's issue as we've been feeling. Just not cool. I can't help kicking myself for a while because she walked late (17 mos) and had a funny gait--I should have brought her in, but it seemed like she was outgrowing it and getting better at walking. Turns out she was just getting better at compensating for it.

So, in a nutshell, her R femur is out of the socket--the socket isn't well-formed and her leg has moved up above it. There are different interventions depending on age, and unfortunately she's likely past the orthoscopic surgery age range and into the open surgery range. Then, from everything I'm reading, it'll be 6 weeks to months of wearing a cast around her hips and one or both legs. That will make it a rough summer for her! We'll have to figure out all sorts of things to work around it (google "spica cast" if you're curious)--car seats, feeding, bathing, diapering, carrying her around (she's already 28# without a cast!)...Again, like I said, I'm jumping ahead of myself and it'll be a few weeks before our appt with the ortho surgeon to get the full scoop. But we're going to have a lot to figure out.

Julie & I were speculating tonight about what Olive's going to develop while she's immobile. We'll focus on getting her to read & write, maybe teach her piano and filmmaking, try to get her to start a blog...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've been through
Some things together
With trunks of memories
Still to come
We found things to do
In stormy weather
Long may you run.

Neil Young

mia said...

I wished I hadn't googled spica casts. Yup moral outrage sums it up...
I vote for reading recipes to Olive from Mastering the Art of French cooking. (I just know Julia has a soothing effect on me, hopefully it would have that affect on Olive) You get 3.5 minutes of thinking about how you wished Olive had been to the Dr. earlier and that is all that is allowed. Love to you guys...

Unknown said...

Fernando thinks it would be the perfect time to introduce Olive to the Star Wars saga.

Unknown said...

nice to see the erdmans, as always! thanks for the visit! geesh, wish you guys could catch a break.. it will be a tough summer.. but, olive is a happy little gal with rad parents, and she'll get through.. better to take care of it now.. i second the star wars introduction.. if you need any help with that, you know where to go.. ;) xoxo