Savannah's Surgery

Savannah had her knee surgery yesterday. I think her knee was a little worse than what the doctor was expecting based on the MRI. The doctor had indicated that he'd be drilling holes up into her femur so it would bleed down into the piece of bone that was peeling away. He was hoping that's all he'd have to do, but he warned me that once he got in there, if it looked like the piece was already separating significantly, he'd probably put a couple pins in to hold the fragment in place while it healed.

When the surgery was over, he came out to talk to me. He told me that he put a screw in her bone as well as three "darts", and he drilled several small holes into her femur so it could bleed down into the piece that was peeling away. Then he told me that her guardian angel was looking out for her. You see, when I first brought Savannah to his office, she presented with just a little tendonitis pain. The doctor told me that if he'd seen Savannah first, he would have asked her questions about her pain and examined her leg and sent her home with the diagnosis of "tendonitis". However, the nurse came into the room first and ordered an xray. Although, based on the exam, Savannah seemed to only have tendonitis, the xray caught the OCD from which she wasn't experiencing any pain yet.

I love stories like this. If the nurse hadn't come in first, Savannah wouldn't have had the xray. Had she not had the xray, they wouldn't have found the OCD. Had they not found it when they did, it likely would've progressed too far to be fixed and she would've suffered problems from it for the rest of her life. And had Savannah not experienced the tendonitis, we wouldn't have sought medical help in the first place. Like the first sentence in my book, Because I Said So, "I believe things happen for a reason." Sure, you don't always know why at the time, but so often you can look back and things make sense. You have that "Ahhhh" moment and suddenly things are clear and you understand why something happened the way it did. That's why you shouldn't worry and stress over things. Like I tell my kids all the time, "Patience, young Jedi". Things will work out the way they should. Just keep the faith. :)

So, she's in pain and her leg is swollen right now. She'll be on crutches for at least two weeks at which point we'll go back to the doctor. And check this out - the screw and pins that were used in her knee are absorbable! They'll disintegrate and be absorbed by her body over the next two years. Amazing! Three tiny incisions for the arthroscopy and absorbable pins! The advances made over a fairly short amount of time astound me.

And thank you so much to all of you who took the time and effort to send Savannah a card! She loved reading every one and seeing where they were from! (One was all the way from Australia!) And she smiled and laughed at the "signatures" written by little ones. She's been making friendship bracelets all day with the kit she was sent. The "bug" was a big hit with Clay and Brooklyn. (She's gotta get that back before they lose it!) And I'm surprised she hasn't sent me out to use the Starbucks card for her yet. You guys really put a smile on her face! She asked me to thank everyone for her! THANK YOU!

I promised her I wouldn't put the picture I snapped of her being wheeled into surgery with a lovely blue scrubs hat on my blog. But I said nothing about using a picture of her knee...