In Peter’s last post he mentions “The Room”. This is the OR waiting room. It’s a large, nicely-decorated room with comfortable chairs arranged in groups where the parents of kids getting operations at Sick Kids sit and wait and wait and wait. On regular weekdays the place has a very creepy vibe: over the day parents are in various states of arriving, staying and leaving, with the average level of tension in the room remaining about the same. Parents leave either after talking to the surgeon in the room (if surgery’s a success) or else going with the surgeon to one of several little antechambers off the main room (if surgery’s… as I said, creepy.) Today being Sunday there were no scheduled operations except for Jon, so we had the whole room to ourselves. The creepiness factor was therefore pretty minimal, though we radiated tension pretty well on our own. There is, apparently, another waiting room for the trauma ORs. I would not like to be there.

It was interesting to note that the surgeon, Dr. Unni Narayanan, and the anaesthesiologist were in disagreement over whether or not to use an epidural for pain control. The anaesthesiologist pointed out how an epidural is done by feel, and can miss, or be partial, or freeze just one leg–the wrong one. As legitimate as his concerns were, he came across as grumpy and that maybe he didn’t want to have to do the extra work, since it can take an hour to properly set an epidural. (It turns out, Jon’s took over an hour.) For better or for worse we sided with the surgeon.

Dr. Narayanan took out Jon’s old leg hardware

and put in new ones, which I assume look somewhat like the old ones (without the bump), except they’re now in the correct place.

After about 4.5 hours in the OR Jon came out well (if justifiably cranky, especially at those traitor parents of his).

So, it turns out that Jon will NOT need a cast!! The new blade plate is apparently strong and securely-fastened enough that it will hold the fracture just fine on its own without a cast reinforcement. In the photo above Jon’s right leg is actually comfortably bent. He just cannot weight-bear for six weeks, but is free to swim after four weeks and take baths when his stitches heal. How we’re going to prevent Mr. I-Prefer-To-Stand-At-The-Computer from hopping off his chair I’m not sure. Ropes, perhaps.

Another thing getting fixed is Jon’s inability to completely straighten his legs. Jon’s hamstrings are pretty tight (due to his CP and his weed-like growth). Dr. Narayanan gave them botox injections to relax them. To help stretch those hammies we’ll be putting knee splints on Jon for a few weeks. So he might as well be in casts, but they’re not nearly as confining and awkward as the A-frame cast he was in five years ago. Whew!

At any rate, feel free to drop by 5A11—we’re here!