Gemmas surgery was successful. Thank you for your posts with all your good wishes.
This is our story. Gemma had her scoliosis surgery at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent on Wednesday 26 January 2005. We are 14 days post surgery now and I cannot believe she is up and about from watching tv and playing on pc to using game console in bedroom. She doesnt even take a nap during the day. Her salvation is the body jacket that she wears all day. It is made of moulded plastic and gives her back all the support it needs to heal. When she takes it off for showers she soon aches and needs the jacket support on quickly. It has zips on the sides and on the shoulders. She has to wear it for six weeks post surgery. Our consultant surgeon managed to avoid breaking gemmas ribs for fusion purposes and took the cut down her back a little further to take bone from her pelvis instead. That meant that she has one long incision from neck to bum instead of having a side incision in addition to the back one. Gemmas op started at 9am and she arrived in the intensive care unit at 4pm which was earlier than they had expected so that was good news too. I was told she panicked a little during the transfer so she was given a little medalsiapm(cant spell it) which made her go very sleepy which they didnt want so my partner and I's main task then was to keep her awake. She could only utter the odd word because her mouth and throat were so dry. I was able to give her small lolly type size wet sponges from time to time but no drink due to her possibly being sick due to the anesthetic. It was hard to translate what she said but we got the hang of it soon. The medication made her seem drunk and she came out with some amusing sentences which lightened the scene for nurses and us. She had a comfortable night and was not complaining of pain at all. Morphine button helped there. She came out of the PICU at 4pm the following day onto the ward. They took her central neck line out before she left. Things got harder on the ward as they took her off morphine quite quickly and the pain started to kick in. For three days she went in and out of sleep and found it very difficult to move but she was very good at edging herself about on the bed using the bed bars. Her catheter and waste drain were removed on the Saturday and she was told she was having her plastic jacket fitted at lunch on the monday. This seemed to me to be far to early because she needed to be able to stand for 20 mins - right now she could only sit on the edge of the bed for barely 2 mins with the physios. However Sunday afternoon was the big turning point, 3 days after surgery and she slowly got to the loo with help and sat up for 5 mins and even played ps1 with sister laying down in bed for half an hour. On monday I was very dubious about her being strong enough still, and Gemma was dreading it , but she lay down until they called her for fitting and she did it by holding on to bar coming down from ceiling. She was glad she had the jacket fitted because it helped her tremendously with back support. We were discharged the following morning (Tues). We exepcted to be in for longer but Gemma and I wanted to get home by now. I stayed every night at Gemmas side. The 2nd night after surgery was the worst because gemmas blood pressure dropped very low and nurses and doctors were coming and going all night which was worrying.
After over a week at home we are getting into a routine and I try and get gemma out for a little walk each day. She also has a home tutor 3 times a week to try and keep on top of school studies. She is year 7 at high school. My 2 year old daughter came home from nursery with chicken pox yesterday - which gemma has never had - so ive got to hope gemma doesn't get it. It could complicate things. Since we came out of hospital Gemma is only on 2 paracetemol every 4 hours (if she feels she needs them) which is amazing considering the thorasic posterior fusion she has had. The consultant will measure her curve at her 6 week check but thinks he has over halved it to around 25 degrees. The xrays we saw looked quite straight and the two rods extend over the length of her ribcage.
I hope this note is of use to people still awaiting their surgery.
I will post an update after Gemma 6week check up.
Thanks for this website everyone. Love Suzanne and Gemma,
England.
This is our story. Gemma had her scoliosis surgery at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent on Wednesday 26 January 2005. We are 14 days post surgery now and I cannot believe she is up and about from watching tv and playing on pc to using game console in bedroom. She doesnt even take a nap during the day. Her salvation is the body jacket that she wears all day. It is made of moulded plastic and gives her back all the support it needs to heal. When she takes it off for showers she soon aches and needs the jacket support on quickly. It has zips on the sides and on the shoulders. She has to wear it for six weeks post surgery. Our consultant surgeon managed to avoid breaking gemmas ribs for fusion purposes and took the cut down her back a little further to take bone from her pelvis instead. That meant that she has one long incision from neck to bum instead of having a side incision in addition to the back one. Gemmas op started at 9am and she arrived in the intensive care unit at 4pm which was earlier than they had expected so that was good news too. I was told she panicked a little during the transfer so she was given a little medalsiapm(cant spell it) which made her go very sleepy which they didnt want so my partner and I's main task then was to keep her awake. She could only utter the odd word because her mouth and throat were so dry. I was able to give her small lolly type size wet sponges from time to time but no drink due to her possibly being sick due to the anesthetic. It was hard to translate what she said but we got the hang of it soon. The medication made her seem drunk and she came out with some amusing sentences which lightened the scene for nurses and us. She had a comfortable night and was not complaining of pain at all. Morphine button helped there. She came out of the PICU at 4pm the following day onto the ward. They took her central neck line out before she left. Things got harder on the ward as they took her off morphine quite quickly and the pain started to kick in. For three days she went in and out of sleep and found it very difficult to move but she was very good at edging herself about on the bed using the bed bars. Her catheter and waste drain were removed on the Saturday and she was told she was having her plastic jacket fitted at lunch on the monday. This seemed to me to be far to early because she needed to be able to stand for 20 mins - right now she could only sit on the edge of the bed for barely 2 mins with the physios. However Sunday afternoon was the big turning point, 3 days after surgery and she slowly got to the loo with help and sat up for 5 mins and even played ps1 with sister laying down in bed for half an hour. On monday I was very dubious about her being strong enough still, and Gemma was dreading it , but she lay down until they called her for fitting and she did it by holding on to bar coming down from ceiling. She was glad she had the jacket fitted because it helped her tremendously with back support. We were discharged the following morning (Tues). We exepcted to be in for longer but Gemma and I wanted to get home by now. I stayed every night at Gemmas side. The 2nd night after surgery was the worst because gemmas blood pressure dropped very low and nurses and doctors were coming and going all night which was worrying.
After over a week at home we are getting into a routine and I try and get gemma out for a little walk each day. She also has a home tutor 3 times a week to try and keep on top of school studies. She is year 7 at high school. My 2 year old daughter came home from nursery with chicken pox yesterday - which gemma has never had - so ive got to hope gemma doesn't get it. It could complicate things. Since we came out of hospital Gemma is only on 2 paracetemol every 4 hours (if she feels she needs them) which is amazing considering the thorasic posterior fusion she has had. The consultant will measure her curve at her 6 week check but thinks he has over halved it to around 25 degrees. The xrays we saw looked quite straight and the two rods extend over the length of her ribcage.
I hope this note is of use to people still awaiting their surgery.
I will post an update after Gemma 6week check up.
Thanks for this website everyone. Love Suzanne and Gemma,
England.
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