's (4 years old now) post surgery update

January 3, 2006

What a great ending ! I am so glad she is doing so well, and your doctors

have been so great. Minus that rude one, I would certainly be writing a letter

to

the Chief of Staff there. There is no reason for treating you like that.

As an adoptive mom, I certainly know how exciting it is to finally get your

adoption final ! Congratulations !!!

DeeDee

California

January 3, 2006

Sorry for the delay in giving you a post surgery update on ,

almost 4 years old. First of all thanks for ALL of your kind

messages and the prayers for as we were getting closer to her

surgery. I have tried to post an update many times since we got

home, however, I didn't do it as a Word document to cut and paste and

therefore, I typed so long each time that it bumped me off each time

before I saved it. You would have thought I would have learned after

the first time. Plus our computer is a dinosaur and sometimes does

weird stuff, too.

is doing GREAT and as most of you remember she had her

surgery on November 18th after being out in Iowa since August 16th.

For those of you that don't know our daughter's story, she had 17

casts changes by Ponseti prior to surgery because her clubfeet had

never been treated. We just brought her home from a Chinese

orphanage in November 2004. We had been told by the doctor's in Utah

that we had been working with since we brought her home, that she

would probably end up being an amputation case because her clubfeet

were so severe. Needless to say, that's when we found Dr. Ponseti.

did great with the surgery, it was afterwards that everything

went crazy. Both Morcuende and Ponseti were very pleased with the

surgery itself. They did a tendon transfer on each foot as well as a

tenotomy. Morcuende didn't have to do as much as he originally

thought going into the surgery. I was so impressed with the

hospital, as they were so awesome with her. I got to hold her all

the ways into the surgery room and she went to sleep so easy as I

held her in my arms. She woke up very calm and they took us up to a

room within 45 minutes of post op. She was so cute and just laid in

my arms for most of the day. In the evening she perked up and was so

funny. Later that night at 10:30 her block wore off on her legs and

she was a mess. I knew to expect this for a few hours or so after

seeing some of the other kids at RMH that went through it, plus Dr.

Morcuende had come into our room in the evening and told me to expect

the block in her legs to wear off between 10 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. He

was right as it started to wear off around 10:30 p.m. cried,

screamed, and kicked for hours and hours. I tried everything I could

think of. I even tried the art of distraction with toys and

activities I brought after she had cried for over 3 hours. The

nurses were so supportive and sweet, trying so hard to help her too,

but nothing calmed her down. We kept thinking she'd just wear

herself out, but that didn't happen. (We had even made sure to start

the meds before she got hurting and the block wore off trying to stay

ahead of the pain.) She was hitting me and trying to bite me and so

aggressive, which is totally opposite of her character. Even the

nurses commented on how abnormal that was for her and they barely

knew her. Finally after about 4 hours of it I asked the nurses if

they thought we had a drug reaction going on in addition to her

dealing with the pain. They thought it was a strong possibility and

told me they had paged the doctor on call doctor to come up. The

nurses and I were discussing if it was a drug reaction, which drug

was actually causing the problem. We knew it had to be either the

morphine or the muscle relaxer, as she had had the other medicine

before. The on call doctor came up from working in the E.R. and did

he ever have a big head on his shoulders. He was down right rude,

arrogant, and no help at all. Even the nurses were upset with him.

They decided to take off the muscle relaxer and replace it

with something else, as the nurses said kids that react to that med

often react like her in a very aggressive way totally opposite of

their normal behavior. They also said more kids react to that

medicine over morphine. After another hour of her screaming, crying,

hitting, etc. I asked them if they could call Dr. Morcuende. They

said, `No, they had to first go through the right channels'. I

totally understood. So they called the doctor on call again and

paged him 3 times over the course of 45 minutes or so before telling

him on the 4th page he had 5 minutes to get up to my room otherwise

they'd handle it another way. Needless to say, after 15 minutes

passed I decided I couldn't wait till morning to call Dr. Morcuende

as she had now been crying and screaming for 6 hours straight and

there was no sign of her tiring out. So I called him at 4:30 in the

morning at home and left him a message first off apologizing to both

him and his family for the timing of this call, and then briefly

explained the problem and that we had tried to work through the

doctor on call but he was no help. I then buzzed the nurses, told

them what I did and apologized, but told them as a mom I needed to do

that, and they totally backed me up. (I have never called a doctor

at home in the middle of the night.) About 30 minutes after the

phone call I made, in came the doctor on call. Morcuende had

obviously talked to him, and oh was this doctor ever mad at me for

making that phone call. He was so rude and so obnoxious that I had

to ask him to leave the room. had finally just started to

quiet down and lay still right before he came in and he was so noisy

I was afraid he was going to get her all upset again. Needless to

say, I had to ask him several times to leave the room before I

finally threatened to beep the nurses to handle it if he didn't honor

my wishes and leave our room immediately. He did and boy were those

nurses upset when they heard what he tried to do. They reminded me

of my rights in the hospital and the right to refuse any treatment if

I didn't agree with it and backed me all the ways. The nurses were

soooo sweet!!! By 6:00 a.m. the nurses told me to plan on staying

another night for sure. I said I agreed as I didn't want to leave

the hospital till we had her pain under control. The next day,

Saturday, she still was struggling with the pain. She could only lie

still for 5-10 minutes at a time before she would jerk up and grab

one of her legs in pain. Dr. Morcuende was awesome, as he and

several other members of his team came to check on her often through

those next two days. Even Dr. Ponseti came up to see her on Sunday

when he heard about the rough time she had had. They continued to

try a few different medicines during the day. Of course, we were

constantly checking her toes for swelling and making sure to keep her

feet elevated when she wasn't kicking and screaming. Her toes looked

great until Saturday late afternoon and then we noticed some

swelling. It was crazy because the nurse and I had just checked them

an hour before and they were fine. At 6:30 that night Dr. Morcuende

called and talked to the nurse and then to me saying he felt we

needed to release her casts to relieve the pressure and explained how

they do it. (They cut the casts on both sides and open it just a

little without cutting the cotton wrap below, and then they wrap it

with an ace bandage, and put a new layer of fiberglass over the top 2

days later.) I told him I didn't want to do that as I didn't want to

mess anything up that he did surgically. He reassured me it would be

just fine that we wouldn't do any damage by doing that, and he really

felt we didn't have any other alternative at this point. It was

really hard for as she doesn't like the cast saw, she was

already exhausted, and still hurting a lot. She got through that and

seemed to be resting much better that night. Later that night they

switched her back to the original muscle relaxer they had her on. At

5 a.m. on Sunday morning we finally turned the corner with her pain

and she just did so much better from that point on. She was like a

new kid, able to sleep for longer periods of time, and so much

happier. Needless to say we got to go home Sunday afternoon. They

did feel that if she did have a drug reaction it was probably to the

morphine.

Monday we went back to the clinic to get a second layer of fiberglass

put over her casts and we changed our plane tickets to go home on

Tuesday before Thanksgiving rather than Monday. Tuesday we got stuck

overnight in Chicago due to weather (so we had to pay for our own

hotel since we flew United Airlines – however, that's another story I

won't go into.) The kids were troopers about the whole thing and

was awesome keeping her feet elevated. She actually kept

them elevated with no complaints for 4 days after she got out of the

hospital. We lucked out and got into the Boise Airport the next day

when the fog lifted for a very, very short period of time. The first

two weeks home she did great with the pain during the day, it was

just the nighttime that was hard, waking up with muscle spasms 4-8

times a night. Now she's doing excellent and has been for quite a

while. Although she's pain free now, she still struggles with waking

up many times during the night and wanting only me to be in with her

since we returned from Iowa. We were just getting her into a good

sleep pattern before Iowa, but after being together for 24 / 7 over

the past months being in Iowa we've taken some steps backwards.

However, once she gets her casts off and we're home for good I think

she'll come around much quicker. It's been so nice to be home for

the holidays and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the children have

fun playing Santa, shaking packages, baking goodies together, and

making holiday crafts as we prepared for Christmas Day. sure

got into it this year.

We are happy to say that we finally went to court before Christmas to

obtain an Adoption Decree which recognizes the Chinese court

proceedings that we did in China as valid and accorded full comity

under the U.S. laws. This then allowed us to get her U.S. birth

certificate saying she was born in China so if in the future she

needs another copy of her birth certificate she can order it here in

the U.S. rather than trying to get another copy through the Chinese

government. Originally our court date was set in August, three days

after we took off for Iowa. Needless to say, we canceled it knowing

it was more important to get her going on her medical treatment.

Our social worker came over the last week of December for our final

post placement visit for the Chinese government. We are now finally

done with all our paperwork for China and her adoption.

You all are awesome and I plan to check postings from this group at

least every other day, as I have not been good about reading postings

since we got home the day before Thanksgiving. I feel so blessed

that got to go out there to Dr. Ponseti and Morcuende. I am

so thankful for those of you that I've gotten to meet face to face in

Iowa. I am so happy to have formed some new friendships with some

of you and I look forward to seeing you again as well as meeting even

more of you in this journey. May the New Year be full of many

blessings for each and everyone!

Joyce

Mommy to bcf-first treated at 3.5 years old by Ponseti

A few questions:

1. I have a lot of really great photos I'd love to post for the

group, but I don't know how to do that. Can anyone help me with

directions to do this?

2. I read a posting where a child had to have a repeated ATTT

done. How common is that? I pray that hers took well, as I don't

want to have to go through another surgery and all the pain

again.

3. Has anyone's older child who was walking, ever walked or ran

on their casts after surgery (ATTT) and if so, how far past the

surgery date did they do it? We've tried to keep totally off

her feet, however, one day we we're not successful with that and I

worry we could have done some damage.

January 3, 2006

Hi Joyce,

I'm so glad is doing well and we want to wish her a belated

happy Birthday. We will most likely be back in Iowa in late March or

early April for his six month check up. I still have to make the

appoinment, etc. Are you guys going to be there anytime soon? Tell

her Collin and his mommy say say hi! Also it's been a while since we

last talked so I haven't told you yet, the doctor's think the baby is

going to be a girl.

Michele

Collin's story at http://www.geocities.com/chele323232

January 3, 2006

Thanks for the update Joyce! We've been

wondering about you and :~} I'm so sorry

she dealt with such pain, I know how that goes

after surgery. My last c-section I had such a

bad reaction to the morphine they gave me

something to take the itchies away which ended up

totally eliminating all the pain killing meds I

had on board and I thought I was going to DIE

from afterpains! It was so bad, I was so messed

up that when the nurse came to take Darbi to be

weighed in the middle of the night I wouldn't let

her take her because she was the one who had

pushed the IV when the bad stuff happened... it

was like in the movie where you see the person

pushing poison and the patient immediately

reacts... I was sure she had tried to kill me

and was going to take my daughter. Not fun at all

and I was riveted when you told 's story

knowing that's a lot for a little kid to handle. What a trooper she is!

So give her a big kiss and hug for us, and love

on her. I can understand her being clingy, she's

got such a great mom why would she want to be with anyone else? :~}

Kori

At 01:19 PM 1/3/2006, you wrote:

>Sorry for the delay in giving you a post surgery update on ,

>almost 4 years old. First of all thanks for ALL of your kind

>messages and the prayers for as we were getting closer to her

>surgery. I have tried to post an update many times since we got

>home, however, I didn't do it as a Word document to cut and paste and

>therefore, I typed so long each time that it bumped me off each time

>before I saved it. You would have thought I would have learned after

>the first time. Plus our computer is a dinosaur and sometimes does

>weird stuff, too.

>

> is doing GREAT and as most of you remember she had her

>surgery on November 18th after being out in Iowa since August 16th.

>For those of you that don't know our daughter's story, she had 17

>casts changes by Ponseti prior to surgery because her clubfeet had

>never been treated. We just brought her home from a Chinese

>orphanage in November 2004. We had been told by the doctor's in Utah

>that we had been working with since we brought her home, that she

>would probably end up being an amputation case because her clubfeet

>were so severe. Needless to say, that's when we found Dr. Ponseti.

>

> did great with the surgery, it was afterwards that everything

>went crazy. Both Morcuende and Ponseti were very pleased with the

>surgery itself. They did a tendon transfer on each foot as well as a

>tenotomy. Morcuende didn't have to do as much as he originally

>thought going into the surgery. I was so impressed with the

>hospital, as they were so awesome with her. I got to hold her all

>the ways into the surgery room and she went to sleep so easy as I

>held her in my arms. She woke up very calm and they took us up to a

>room within 45 minutes of post op. She was so cute and just laid in

>my arms for most of the day. In the evening she perked up and was so

>funny. Later that night at 10:30 her block wore off on her legs and

>she was a mess. I knew to expect this for a few hours or so after

>seeing some of the other kids at RMH that went through it, plus Dr.

>Morcuende had come into our room in the evening and told me to expect

>the block in her legs to wear off between 10 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. He

>was right as it started to wear off around 10:30 p.m. cried,

>screamed, and kicked for hours and hours. I tried everything I could

>think of. I even tried the art of distraction with toys and

>activities I brought after she had cried for over 3 hours. The

>nurses were so supportive and sweet, trying so hard to help her too,

>but nothing calmed her down. We kept thinking she'd just wear

>herself out, but that didn't happen. (We had even made sure to start

>the meds before she got hurting and the block wore off trying to stay

>ahead of the pain.) She was hitting me and trying to bite me and so

>aggressive, which is totally opposite of her character. Even the

>nurses commented on how abnormal that was for her and they barely

>knew her. Finally after about 4 hours of it I asked the nurses if

>they thought we had a drug reaction going on in addition to her

>dealing with the pain. They thought it was a strong possibility and

>told me they had paged the doctor on call doctor to come up. The

>nurses and I were discussing if it was a drug reaction, which drug

>was actually causing the problem. We knew it had to be either the

>morphine or the muscle relaxer, as she had had the other medicine

>before. The on call doctor came up from working in the E.R. and did

>he ever have a big head on his shoulders. He was down right rude,

>arrogant, and no help at all. Even the nurses were upset with him.

>They decided to take off the muscle relaxer and replace it

>with something else, as the nurses said kids that react to that med

>often react like her in a very aggressive way totally opposite of

>their normal behavior. They also said more kids react to that

>medicine over morphine. After another hour of her screaming, crying,

>hitting, etc. I asked them if they could call Dr. Morcuende. They

>said, `No, they had to first go through the right channels'. I

>totally understood. So they called the doctor on call again and

>paged him 3 times over the course of 45 minutes or so before telling

>him on the 4th page he had 5 minutes to get up to my room otherwise

>they'd handle it another way. Needless to say, after 15 minutes

>passed I decided I couldn't wait till morning to call Dr. Morcuende

>as she had now been crying and screaming for 6 hours straight and

>there was no sign of her tiring out. So I called him at 4:30 in the

>morning at home and left him a message first off apologizing to both

>him and his family for the timing of this call, and then briefly

>explained the problem and that we had tried to work through the

>doctor on call but he was no help. I then buzzed the nurses, told

>them what I did and apologized, but told them as a mom I needed to do

>that, and they totally backed me up. (I have never called a doctor

>at home in the middle of the night.) About 30 minutes after the

>phone call I made, in came the doctor on call. Morcuende had

>obviously talked to him, and oh was this doctor ever mad at me for

>making that phone call. He was so rude and so obnoxious that I had

>to ask him to leave the room. had finally just started to

>quiet down and lay still right before he came in and he was so noisy

>I was afraid he was going to get her all upset again. Needless to

>say, I had to ask him several times to leave the room before I

>finally threatened to beep the nurses to handle it if he didn't honor

>my wishes and leave our room immediately. He did and boy were those

>nurses upset when they heard what he tried to do. They reminded me

>of my rights in the hospital and the right to refuse any treatment if

>I didn't agree with it and backed me all the ways. The nurses were

>soooo sweet!!! By 6:00 a.m. the nurses told me to plan on staying

>another night for sure. I said I agreed as I didn't want to leave

>the hospital till we had her pain under control. The next day,

>Saturday, she still was struggling with the pain. She could only lie

>still for 5-10 minutes at a time before she would jerk up and grab

>one of her legs in pain. Dr. Morcuende was awesome, as he and

>several other members of his team came to check on her often through

>those next two days. Even Dr. Ponseti came up to see her on Sunday

>when he heard about the rough time she had had. They continued to

>try a few different medicines during the day. Of course, we were

>constantly checking her toes for swelling and making sure to keep her

>feet elevated when she wasn't kicking and screaming. Her toes looked

>great until Saturday late afternoon and then we noticed some

>swelling. It was crazy because the nurse and I had just checked them

>an hour before and they were fine. At 6:30 that night Dr. Morcuende

>called and talked to the nurse and then to me saying he felt we

>needed to release her casts to relieve the pressure and explained how

>they do it. (They cut the casts on both sides and open it just a

>little without cutting the cotton wrap below, and then they wrap it

>with an ace bandage, and put a new layer of fiberglass over the top 2

>days later.) I told him I didn't want to do that as I didn't want to

>mess anything up that he did surgically. He reassured me it would be

>just fine that we wouldn't do any damage by doing that, and he really

>felt we didn't have any other alternative at this point. It was

>really hard for as she doesn't like the cast saw, she was

>already exhausted, and still hurting a lot. She got through that and

>seemed to be resting much better that night. Later that night they

>switched her back to the original muscle relaxer they had her on. At

>5 a.m. on Sunday morning we finally turned the corner with her pain

>and she just did so much better from that point on. She was like a

>new kid, able to sleep for longer periods of time, and so much

>happier. Needless to say we got to go home Sunday afternoon. They

>did feel that if she did have a drug reaction it was probably to the

>morphine.

>

>Monday we went back to the clinic to get a second layer of fiberglass

>put over her casts and we changed our plane tickets to go home on

>Tuesday before Thanksgiving rather than Monday. Tuesday we got stuck

>overnight in Chicago due to weather (so we had to pay for our own

>hotel since we flew United Airlines however, that's another story I

>won't go into.) The kids were troopers about the whole thing and

> was awesome keeping her feet elevated. She actually kept

>them elevated with no complaints for 4 days after she got out of the

>hospital. We lucked out and got into the Boise Airport the next day

>when the fog lifted for a very, very short period of time. The first

>two weeks home she did great with the pain during the day, it was

>just the nighttime that was hard, waking up with muscle spasms 4-8

>times a night. Now she's doing excellent and has been for quite a

>while. Although she's pain free now, she still struggles with waking

>up many times during the night and wanting only me to be in with her

>since we returned from Iowa. We were just getting her into a good

>sleep pattern before Iowa, but after being together for 24 / 7 over

>the past months being in Iowa we've taken some steps backwards.

>However, once she gets her casts off and we're home for good I think

>she'll come around much quicker. It's been so nice to be home for

>the holidays and I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the children have

>fun playing Santa, shaking packages, baking goodies together, and

>making holiday crafts as we prepared for Christmas Day. sure

>got into it this year.

>

>We are happy to say that we finally went to court before Christmas to

>obtain an Adoption Decree which recognizes the Chinese court

>proceedings that we did in China as valid and accorded full comity

>under the U.S. laws. This then allowed us to get her U.S. birth

>certificate saying she was born in China so if in the future she

>needs another copy of her birth certificate she can order it here in

>the U.S. rather than trying to get another copy through the Chinese

>government. Originally our court date was set in August, three days

>after we took off for Iowa. Needless to say, we canceled it knowing

>it was more important to get her going on her medical treatment.

>

>Our social worker came over the last week of December for our final

>post placement visit for the Chinese government. We are now finally

>done with all our paperwork for China and her adoption.

>

>You all are awesome and I plan to check postings from this group at

>least every other day, as I have not been good about reading postings

>since we got home the day before Thanksgiving. I feel so blessed

>that got to go out there to Dr. Ponseti and Morcuende. I am

>so thankful for those of you that I've gotten to meet face to face in

>Iowa. I am so happy to have formed some new friendships with some

>of you and I look forward to seeing you again as well as meeting even

>more of you in this journey. May the New Year be full of many

>blessings for each and everyone!

>

>Joyce

>Mommy to bcf-first treated at 3.5 years old by Ponseti

>

>A few questions:

>1. I have a lot of really great photos I'd love to post for the

>group, but I don't know how to do that. Can anyone help me with

>directions to do this?

>2. I read a posting where a child had to have a repeated ATTT

>done. How common is that? I pray that hers took well, as I don't

>want to have to go through another surgery and all the pain

>again.

>3. Has anyone's older child who was walking, ever walked or ran

>on their casts after surgery (ATTT) and if so, how far past the

>surgery date did they do it? We've tried to keep totally off

>her feet, however, one day we we're not successful with that and I

>worry we could have done some damage.

>

January 3, 2006

Joyce:

So good to hear from you. We wondered how things were going. We just got back

from Iowa this past weekend for ' 3 month check up. Dr. Ponseti is so

please and has moved into 14-16 hrs for the s. YEAH! The RMH

was pretty lonely without having you guys and Michele and Collin there. I have

thought about calling but now that I know things are getting better I will do

that.

Mommy to

childrenloveall wrote: