RE: 's (4 years old now) post surgery update

[Guest guest]

Hi Joyce,

That's quite an experience. You're pretty gutsy calling Dr. Morcuende at

home at that hour of the morning. has a great mom!

We had a similar experience with our daughter Emma. Dr. Morcuende performed

her ATTT in Nov 2003 when she was 4. Everything went well except that the

block never took and she woke up screaming and thrashing. In the recovery

room the doctors were great as were most of the nurses. There was one nurse

who told my wife and I that Emma was a brat--this was 5 minutes after

meeting her. I wanted to pick up the full pot that Emma was using to pee in

and dump it on her head. This nurse was even insulted that Emma didn't smile

and say hi back when she first introduced herself.

Anyway, my point in responding was to address your question about repeated

ATTTs. This has apparently happened when doctors tried different materials

and methods to attach the tendon. Dr. Morcuende told us that there has never

been a problem with the way he does it.

Best wishes for the new year,

Dan

[Guest guest]

Hi Joyce!

Glad to hear is doing so well! What a rough surgical experience. We

had nothing but the best for both of Jake's surgeries (both were done at the

University of Iowa, by Dr Dietz who works with Dr Morcuende & Dr Ponseti). Jake

had the nerve block (in his leg) with his second surgery; it wore off around

2am. We ended up using oral pain meds because the morphine PCA just didn't cut

it.

In response to your post~~

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?

** I can't help you with this unfortunately as I've never posted pictures here

either!

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.

** I'm betting you've read my posts. I don't think there are any other

children here who've had it done a second time! Dr Dietz said it is very rare

for a child to need a 2nd ATTT; in fact, in 20+ years of doing this kind of

surgery he's only had that happen about 6 times, he said.

In any case, Jake's situation was kind of weird. When Jake had his 5 month

check up, Dr Dietz was concerned that the tendon was not working well enough at

lifting his foot up. We were to go back in another 3 months (that would have

been about 8 mos after surgery) but Jake fell & broke his leg. So our next

check-up with Dr Dietz was about a year after surgery, at which point Jake's

tendon still was not working well, and Dr Dietz was anticipating Jake needing to

have the ATTT re-done. We waited a couple of months to make our final decision

because we weren't sure if the weakness was caused by Jake's leg being in a cast

for almost 9 wks after his leg fracture. So, Jake did have a second ATTT

surgery this past October. This time around Dr Dietz used both the suture and a

screw to hold the tendon in place, and Jake was in casts for a longer time (the

full-leg cast for 6 wks and a lower leg walking cast for 3 wks).

The reason why Jake needed to have the ATTT re-done was because his tendon

pulled out of the bone a little bit. Dr Dietz couldn't tell us why that

happened. Typically it's because the child was weight-bearing in the cast. Dr

Dietz told us not to allow Jake to try to stand or walk on the cast....my

husband remembers Jake trying to stand on his cast leg several times after his

first surgery. After the second surgery we made sure Jake understood that he

couldn't *ever* stand or walk or run or jump with the cast on. Jake was very

cooperative since he does not want to have surgery again! I think it helped

that he is 4 years old-- his first surgery was done when he was only 3 years old

and he definitely understands things much better now. I have heard from many

parents, though, that their kids walked & ran in the casts, and their surgeries

were completely successful.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions.

Kassia

3/22/01 (Lt clubfoot, ATTT #2 October 2005)

and 11/22/02

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 1/4/2006 8:10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time,

dan_lisa@... writes:

> I wanted to pick up the full pot that Emma was using to pee in

> and dump it on her head. This nurse was even insulted that Emma didn't smile

> and say hi back when she first introduced herself.

Boy can I relate ! She sounds like our school nurse.

DeeDee

California