Scheuerman's Kyphosis Surgery

[kell]

My 15 year old son is scheduled to have surgery August 14th. Has anyone else out there had this surgery. What was the outcome? He has a 75 degree curve 6 months ago it was a 60 degree curve. We are pretty scared. He is having it in Salt Lake City at Primary Childrens Hospital. Hi s doctor believes he will be out of the hospital in about 5 days. We have a 4 hour ride home from the hospital. Hopefully I can make him comfortable. His room is in the lower level of our home hopefully we can get in down the stairs.
Thanks, Cody's Mom

[LindaRacine]

Hi Kell...

In addition to any replies you see here, you might also want to do a search (see the Search link above). There have been other discussions on the topic.

Regards,
Linda

[Snoopy]

Kell,

My almost 15 y.o. daughter is 19 months post-op. She had surgery to correct both her Kyphosis (71*) and her Scoliosis (46*). Feel free to ask any questions you may have. Feel free to contact me or my daughter at Spinesupport05@aol.com.

Good luck.

Mary Lou

[hajjball]

Hi,
My now 16 year old son had this surgery 6/21/05. He is doing wonderfully. Feel free to ask any questions.

[Carmell]

Hi Cody's mom,

My son, Braydon (age 11yrs old) is a patient at PCMC too. I'd be happy to answer questions about the hospital specifically if you haven't had much experience there. Braydon just had his 19th surgery in March... next surgery scheduled for October (he has surgery every 6-ish months to lengthen the titanium rods supporting his scoliosis). Feel free to email me anytime. I understand how scary this is! boulderfam@hotmail.com

[nikyergen]

Hi Kell;
My almost 18 year old daughter had this surgery on 3/15/2005. She was in the hospital 6 days, and back to school at three weeks post-op. She had an 88 degree curve and got over a 50% correction. She has done wonderfully and is her normal teenage self again. Her sisters have no mercy on her anymore and treat her as if nothing ever happened. The things she can't do - bungee jump and play football(which she doesn't play anyway). What can she do - everything, including her favorite sport BASKETBALL.

A worthy purchase would be one or two full length body pillows. We took one to the hospital with us. It was much nicer to work with. Take lots of pillows to pad around him for the trip home. We had a six hour drive. The one thing we did was got Crystal out of the car about every 1 - 1 1/2 hours to stretch her legs. It kept her from getting to stiff and sore. Make sure you have all his pain meds filled before you head for home, have something light for him to eat in the car and water in case he needs pain meds on the way home. An empty stomach can raise havoc with pain meds. She acually slept most of the way home, but did appreciate getting out of the car on occassion. A mini-van is the best. They are easy for them to get in and out of. We had to borrow a relatives mini-van, since all we own is a one ton 4x4 pickup. Crystal didn't have any problem negotiating stairs, but she took them one at a time and very slowly.

Another rather embarrassing suggestion is to have a pillow in the bathroom. The purpose is so that when he sits on the toilet, he can put it behind his back and have something comfortable and that isn't stone cold to lean on.

The first couple of weeks are the toughest. Then they start feeling better. Then you start fretting because they start feeling really good and egging on the siblings for wrestling matches. I cried when Crystal was chasing her dad through the house at 6 weeks post op and jumped over the dishwasher door while I was doing dishes. All I could see was real bad things happening. But, all that's well, ends well. She survived, siblings survived the scoldings for falling into her traps of antagonizing, and I survived. Dad, well, he just held me while I cried and he tried not to laugh. Today, almost 18 months later, I can laugh about it all.

So very glad she had the surgery, and it really has improved her health with her asthma.

If you have any other questions, please ask.
Nikki

[kell]

Donating your own blood

Were Your children able to donate there own blood. We tried twice. The first time was totally unsuccessful. They didn't get even started. He said they had told him several times that he may feel ill. Afer hearing it several times he started feeling ill. So they didn't attempt to draw blood. I rescheduled for another day. He started out okay. They got about 1/2 a unit and he started to black out. So we are using Red Cross Blood.

Niki...We have only seen the doctor once also. It is hard to remember everything he told us. I have called a few times to see if they need to see him prior to the surgery and they do not. Seems kinda strange. I still no idea what this surgery is going to cost?? Hopefully insurance will pick up 80%.

Thank you all for your comments.

[kell]

Donating your own blood

Were Your children able to donate there own blood. We tried twice. The first time was totally unsuccessful. They didn't get even started. He said they had told him several times that he may feel ill. Afer hearing it several times he started feeling ill. So they didn't attempt to draw blood. I rescheduled for another day. He started out okay. They got about 1/2 a unit and he started to black out. So we are using Red Cross Blood.

Niki...We have only seen the doctor once also. It is hard to remember everything he told us. I have called a few times to see if they need to see him prior to the surgery and they do not. Seems kinda strange. I still have no idea what this surgery is going to cost?? Hopefully insurance will pick up 80%.

Thank you all for your comments.

[nikyergen]

Kell,
We take all three of our girls to Shriners in Portland. The cost of the surgery, if we would of done it anywhere else would of been between $150,000-250,000. Crystal's surgery was on the higher end of the scale. You need to know what this is going to cost you before you go into it. Sometimes the balance left is like buying a new car. The nice thing about Shriners is that your insurance doesn't get billed and you don't get billed. You never see the bill. The only bill I saw was for lab work to the tune of $1,500 that was sent to my insurance. After the insurance paid what they wanted to pay, then Shriners paid the rest of the bill. That was the only bill our insurance saw and that was because the lab work is done by an outside provider from Shriners Hospital.

Crystal saw her surgeon for the final diagnosis and then had surgery 6 months later. She saw him the day before her surgery for her pre-op questions. She didn't donate blood for her surgery and she didn't require any blood during surgery. They collected any she lost and put it through a machine to clean it and reused it. I call it recylced blood for a lack of a better term.

The best thing I can share is that things look much better once your son comes out of surgery and is back in his room. Some of us here call is being on the OTHERSIDE. You have a sense of relief because surgery is finally over.

Jaimie, Mary Lou's daughter had this same surgery and I think other than injuring her ankle this year, she is doing very well too.

If you need anything let us know.
Nikki

[Carmell]

Kell,

Please don't stress about blood donation. Do you have friends or family with the same blood type that could do a direct donation? Braydon's fusion surgery was done when he was an infant. We had a friend do direct donation for him. It worked great.

Again, please find some answers so you aren't so flustered and frazzled (although this is a very "normal" feeling right now). Let me know if I can help.

I will say that you (the parent) need to talk to the Pain Services people BEFORE the surgery. Call the hospital and find out what pain management plan they will be using so you can keep the nurses on schedule. Take a notebook with you. Write down the medications and the doses and what time. This way you will KNOW he's getting what he needs. It helps YOU feel better when you know what to expect.

Take care!

[Snoopy]

I agree with everything Nikki and Carmell have said. Keeping track of when pain meds are due in the hospital (and at home for the first week or so) is crucial! We had one bad experience in the hospital where we had asked for pain pills and then fell asleep only to wake up 2 hours later with Jamie in extreme pain. It took the pain pills, plus 2 shots of morphine to get her pain back under control. If you feel your son's pain meds aren't working, ask them to change them. Jamie started out with the morhpine pump and was switched to Vivadin (sp) and then was switched to Perecet (sp). You know your son best and trust your instincts.

Like Nikki said, Jamie had surgery for Kyphosis and Scoliosis. She is more than 18 months post-op and doing great! She has completely healed from the ankle injury and doesn't have any restrictions from her back surgery (other than like Nikki said no sky diving, bungy jumping, etc). She rides our 4-wheeler, dives into the pool, rode rollercoaster this summer for the first time since surgery and joined the swim team.

This time right before surgery is very stressful, so like the others have said, don't stress over the blood donation. Jamie was supposed to donate 4 units, but only managed to donate 2 and everything worked out okay. As for the insurance, check with the insurance company to see how much they will pay. Check with the hospital about making monthly payments and set up a payment plan ahead of time.

Everything will work out and it does get better once the surgery is over. It is a BIG relief to "be on the other side" of surgery. Our thoughts and prayers are with your family and feel free to let us know if we can help with anything.

Mary Lou