One year (!) post surgery

Incredibly, it's been an entire year since Quinn's tendon transfer surgery to repair his brachial plexus injury - the "SN" that brought us together. He has almost complete use of his right arm - before the surgery he had almost no use of it - but he still has to be reminded, constantly, to use it.

His one remaining challenge is reaching behind his back, which makes dressing himself quite a challenge. In fact, one reason we decided to go ahead with surgery was meeting an 8-year-old girl with brachial plexus injury who was begging her parents for surgery because she couldn't dress herself, put on her backpack or hang on the monkey bars at school. Anyway, his PT suggested some exercises that didn't really work and I've tried some other things that didn't really work. So not much progress, until about a month ago when I ran into his former feeding therapist, who is the easily most brilliant person I've ever met when it comes to children. "Hmmm," she said, "What could we do?" And on the spot she plopped down on the floor and came up about three exercises THAT ARE WORKING. Incredible. Quinn had no strength to sustain them when we started, but I already see that changing. Score (another) one for the feeding therapist!

We head back to Boston in a couple of weeks for his one-year check up with Dr. Waters. I'll be eager to hear his report, and eager for our strange little family vacation that has become our medical trips to Boston!

His own worst enemy

The good news is that despite the eight-pound cast Quinn is lugging around, he is feeling great. The bad news... despite the eight-pound cast Quinn is lugging around, he is feeling great. So great, in fact, that he thinks nothing of running across the porch and leaping off into the lawn, or standing up on the sofa or trying to climb up the side of a big rock. If he succeeds -- not surprisingly, considering how off-kilter his balance is -- he often falls. And hits his head. And cries.

It's like having a brand-new walker again. We have to watch this child like a hawk.

Seriously, I can't help but marvel at how amazingly well this kid is doing. And it hit me the other day that he doesn't know this thing is coming off in a month. To him, it's gotta be something like, "Well, I guess this is my new life." I'm a pretty optimistic person, and I truly believe I would be a basket case in his shoes. That cast is heavy. It's hot. It severely constricts him. It prevents him any use of his right arm. Good Lord, that's a lot to take in.

But Quinn has no time or inclination to worry about any of that. He's too busy looking for the next thing he can climb up on and hurl himself off of.

Home again

Quinn did astonishingly well on the plane trip home. That was the part of this whole ordeal I was most dreading, and it really was no big deal.

To be honest, I think codeine may have been a factor. At my mom's wise suggestion, we gave him a dose of his pain meds shortly before each flight. The first takeoff was really tough - he could not get comfortable in the seat and was squirming, pulling off his seat belt and crying pretty hard. After takeoff I managed to get him to lay down with his feet in my lap and he went almost immediately to sleep. Miraculously, he stayed that way for the entire four-hour flight. I even got to read a book and drink a hot tea.

In Dallas he had a nice dinner of his beloved vegetable lo mein, and on the flight home he laid with his head in my lap and watched Baby Beethoven (known to Quinn as "teh bear vi" after the violin-playing teddy bear that makes a couple of appearances near the beginning of the video.

He's pooped and we're pooped, but we're all glad to be home.

Out of surgery and mad as hell (updated with photos)

Quinn's surgery wasn't until 2:45 p.m., which really worried us because this kid does not like to skip meals. Our strategy was to keep him busy, busy, busy and filled up with apple juice, which was allowed until two hours before surgery.


At 12:30, a bit nervous, we left the Yawkey Family House Here it is - a former frat house that was completely renovated and reopened about 9 months ago in its current form.)



At the hospital, he walked happily into the OR. He had a great time operating the mechanical bed with directions from the awesomely cool anesthesiologist, and played a fun game blowing into a mask, which he didn't realize was the fumes that would knock him out. The nurses were very patient and took their time with him, but when he tried to convince them to put the mask on his toe ("On toe! On toe!"), the anesthesiologist popped the mask on his mouth and off to dreamland he went.

While he was in surgery, we waited in this very nice family area. The surgery lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes, followed by an hour to put on the cast and an hour in the recovery room before we were ushered in. The poor kid woke up immobile, with his arm in a horribly awkward position.



Understandably, he is MAD! Between tears and begging to put his arm down, he did ask for some apple juice (his new passion, discovered this morning when he was on a clear-liquids diet until our noon arrival at the hospital).



He is doing well, all things considered. A nurse was able to scare up a master key to the locked video room, so Barney is making things better, as Barney always does for Quinn. After two doses of morphine, he is finally sleeping and I'm in the fold-out bed beside him.

Dr. Waters said kids who wake up with a "spike" cast are typically mad, mad, mad for a day or two and then adjust quite well once they realize it's not going away. Let's hope that's the case for Quinn!