Second of two scheduled appointments at Sick Kids this week: Jon’s filling. It started here, but today was the big day.

It was awful. The young Sick Kids team did their best, but Jon turned into a beast. I was holding down all four limbs, and the dentist had him in a semi-headlock as they needled, put in the rubber dam, drilled and filled. A TV played in the background with a favourite program: nothing doing. It wasn’t even his tantrumy screams—it was a lord-of-the-flies growl, loud and mean—as he thrashed and fought. He was a creature bent entirely on survival.

We try to put a brave face on it, joking around and trying to keep things light, but every time I’ve had to hold Jon down for one of these things (I’ve had to do it for some eye exams, and ambulatory work), I lose a little piece of me.

Once he was released—and never was the term so appropriate—Jon ignored all advice not to chew and began to gnaw on his frozen cheek. By the time we got to the elevator, blood was pouring from his mouth and back we went for gauze.

He has a big fat lip forming; it’ll be a weekend of ice and Tylenol.

Ah, the Sick Kids’ orthopaedic clinic. One of those energy-sucking places where time apparently stops as you wait for your appointment. At least Jon had the iPod, so he didn’t notice. 🙂

We met with Dr. Unni, and Jon’s leg has passed muster. He may now weight bear on it. For school, that means stander and walker and for home that means crawling. (Jon started his crawling last evening, and after a short distance was puffing. It’ll take him a while to get back into shape.) All of the allowed activities don’t carry any risk of major impact; anything that risks a tumble is still out for now. When the blade plate was replaced, they were able to use two of the three old screw holes. The “empty” hole has now filled in, but it’s still a stress fracture risk for a month or two.

So, after all of the good news, our attention turned to the left hip, which clearly needs to be rebuilt. Same carpentry as five years ago: (boring medical jargon) cutting the femoral head and neck and resetting it at a right angle and corrected side angle with a blade plate, and inserting a wedge of bone from the femur into a pelvic incision to improve the socket (the pelvis will fill in with bone).

Looks like it will be this coming spring (at least this summer’s excitement has us prepped: we know the routine). Book your visits early. No, really.

The most fascinating nugget is that Dr. Unni is thinking about removing the current right-leg hardware during that surgery. The thinking goes like this:

They don’t usually take the hardware out because usually there is no reason to. In general, removing it would require a second surgery, pain management, and much recovery time, all for something that isn’t causing trouble. Jon’s case (where the plate migrates to a weak spot) is rare. But since a) since it has happened in Jon, b) by then the right femur and hip will be fully healed and c) they have the opportunity—he’ll be sedated and under epidural pain management for the other hip, and he’ll be restricting his activity for months anyway (so recovery time is a non-interfering as it can be), why not?

The only problem I can see is the first two or three weeks of sleep at home. With both hips stitched and sore, I’ll be on call to turn him over through the night. And he turns over a lot.

Jon’s appointment to give his leg the OK was scheduled for today, but it turned out that not only had today’s clinic been cancelled, but we went weren’t told because we had been removed from the list of patients!

The deeper I get into it, the more it appears that we are caught in a tug of war between the bureaucracies of two hospitals (Bloorview MacMillan and Sick Kids). And the scheduling person in the point position—the one person who could explain why our appointment was both altered AND cancelled without letting us know—has taken an extremely extended long weekend. Grrr. It will be at least a week before we can find out how Jon’s leg is doing.

Now I have to decide whether to start some gentle physio with Jon telling me his limits, or let it atrophy more to wait for the experts.

Jon and Midori fooling around with effects in PhotoBooth

Midori returned to Vancouver this afternoon. What can we say about a young woman who would voluntarily give up the second last week of summer vacation and her birthday celebrations with friends and close family, and instead dub herself “Play Therapist” and fly across the continent to stimulate a fairly-immobile recovering cousin?

Midori gave Jon what he desperately needed: a peer to play with, a cousin to look up to, and a non-parent to interact with. Given the summer proximity, we were all getting a little crispy when she arrived, so her presence alone made a big difference. And she was a great guest to boot. We felt kind of bad that we were such boring hosts and couldn’t offer her more entertainment. She even was a good running buddy too, for at least one run. Sorry about the Ontario humidity, Meech.

And a huge thank you!

Saying goodbye at YYZ