Monday, February 8, 2010

Only Ryan...




Where do I start? Back in November 09' (at Lukey's Birthday Party) Ryan was complaining of his left ankle hurting. So, I brought him to his Ortho. Dr. down at DuPont...in all honesty I thought Ryan was fine. As it turned out his growth plate was out-of-line. Who would have thought?! So, Ryan goes home with this cool cam boot :) He was super excited, as a matter of fact he couldn't wait til he could show Pop-Pop and his friends at school! In four weeks we make our trek back down to DuPont for the follow-up at which point the ortho states it's been 4 weeks he looks good, seems to be walking well, etc. At that point the ortho decides to take him out of the cam boot and sends us home...which was fine with me and Ryan was happy too :)


Then, out of nowhere Ryan starts complaining again and is limping everywhere we go. I honestly thought he was faking it and just wants the cam boot back on :/ I called the ortho. and speak to the P.A. (physician's asst.) and we discuss whether or not to do an MRI at this point, which we both agree its definitely warranted. I set up the MRI, which we would still be waiting for if Ryan's ortho. Dr. didn't call them back and state he needed this MRI stat. Ryan had to be sedated b/c they wanted him to be completely still, which is hard for a 7 year old, it's hard for an adult to be still...who are we kidding :) The sedation nurse was terrific, even the anesthesiologists was great! As a matter of fact, the anesthesiologists actually asked about Ryan's probable mito. disorder b/c she actually was reading his chart. I was amazed b/c most Dr.'s brush this info. off...needless to say I was extremely impressed! He was not given propofol (which I'm sure as everyone knows this is what ultimately lead Michael Jackson to have his fatal heart attack and subsequently die) but rather Ryan was given another sedative that he could easily metabolize. Ryan came through the MRI wonderfully and we were just about to leave when a nurse came by and told us that we needed to wait to be discharges b/c ortho. wants to talk with us.

In walks Ryan's P.A. and she states, "you won't believe this"! Apparently, Ryan had also fractured his cuboid bone, which is on top of the foot...not the ankle :/ I was shocked...needless to say! I asked his P.A., "how did this happen and most importantly how did we miss this the first time around"??? She told me that they were concentrating on the ankle and had only x-rayed the ankle, not the foot. Also, she had NO CLUE how on earth Ryan had done this :/ To this day, we still have no clue as to exactly how Ryan fractured his cuboid bone, and it's believed that this is the same time his growth plate became out-of-line as well...Only Ryan!!! The only thing we, the ortho, Ron, and myself, can even fathom is the fact that Ryan learned to jump over the summer and recently (before he had the cam boot/cast) he had been jumping non-stop everywhere! Other than this absolutely nothing...tell me we shouldn't be nominated for parents of the year award...LOL! Before we left Dupont hospital's sedation unit we stopped off at the cast unit and Ryan walked out with a hard cast, that to this very day has been trying his hardest to remove the cast. He thinks its removable, just as like the cam boot :/

In the meantime we believe that Ryan is having seizure activity yet again :( Ry's neuro. dr. and us can't confirm this-but we are *almost* 100% sure. We recently went down to DuPont (something different this time-not the foot) where Ry had an EEG. We were hoping that this EEG would show us what we were expecting but it didn't :( However, it did read that Ryan has "abnormal" brain waves. Which I was told by Ry's neuro. dr. this could mean 1 of 2 things:1)its the meds Ryan is on to help control his seizure activity or 2)it means that Ryan is having some sort of seizure activity. So, what do we do from here? Ryan now needs to have a 24 hour EEG in the hospital. Perhaps this will lead us to the answers we are searching for but then again who knows...after all it is Ryan and he truly is a complex child!

I will, of course, keep family and friends updated on progress with both his foot and the seizure activity :/

Love & HUGS,
Jenny, Ron, Ryan & Lukey