It's hard to believe that it's been over two weeks since surgery. The past two weeks have been busy and have gone by very quickly. I started a post a week after surgery, but time never allowed me to finish it ... so here's the update 17 days post op.
Matthew found sleep wasn't so great the first night in his own bed. Keeping his feet on the elevation pillow was a bit of challenge and by morning he was complaining of a sore back from laying in bed all the time.
He received a visitor the day after he got back home who commented that his family had a "hospital" bed that they were not using. Several hours later and ta-da, Matthew had a nice comfy hospital-type bed. This has been such a blessing!! His feet are much more comfortable because he's not focusing on keeping them on the elevation pillow but can move them around as he pleases and his back is much more comfortable with proper support.
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| Marietta and Matthew have been "sick-buddies" and like to play Among Us together |
The first days he had to be mostly laying down with his feet up above his heart, but as the week went on he has been slowly able to sit up more with his feet reasonably elevated ... so more even with his heart instead of above his heart. As soon as his feet were not elevated enough they would begin to hurt. A trip to the bathroom was painful at first because he would have to put his feet down for this.
On Friday, four days post-op, there was an end of season Volleyball game (boys against girls) and pizza party and he was determined that he would go. So his first outing was to this event, all said and done he was probably out of his bed for about two hours. This was a good tests to see how the feet would do, would the pain increase to unbearable or stay the same and would the pain go away as soon as elevated? This went well, the pain stayed at the same level and once he was back in his bed for a bit the pain went away again. By Saturday he was off all pain medications.
On Sunday he went to church (one service) with his feet propped up on a chair. While his feet hurt it was more the fact he ended up with an extremely sore back that he wasn't so eager to go out and about again soon ... maybe also because he hates school?!? So we kept him home for a few more days to allow him some more recovery time. This also gave a bit more time to make sure he was caught up in school work before getting back into the grove of things.
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| A special visitor |
He returned to school 10 days post-op for a couple hours the first day and about four hours the second day. After the first day I took him in to the wheelchair rental place to get a few things adjusted on his wheelchair as well as have leg elevators added. I had not gotten them at first because they were ridiculously priced (almost 4x the amount of the actual wheelchair rental) and I had thought by time he went back to school he wouldn't need them. Until we got them he could not raise his feet when in the wheelchair but needed to find a chair or something to rest them on and this was hindering him from leaving his bed for too long. With the leg elevators he can adjust the feet and bring his legs up when needed and quickly put them back down for moving around. This makes school easier because he is determined to be independent and doesn't want to have to ask someone to bring him a chair for his feet or move the chair out of the way of his wheelchair.
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| He was so excited about a couple Lego Technic gifts he received ... still loves his lego!! Always fun, but a little more challenging to keep little pieces from rolling off the tray and getting buried in the bed |
Monday and Tuesday of this week he went to school full days and it has gone well. His feet seldom hurt now and you can tell by how much more moving around he does. He is determined to be independent. In his room he will either have the wheeled commode or his wheelchair beside his bed. The commode has worked great for getting in and out of the bathroom since its wheels maneuver more then a wheelchair. It also was so much easier during those first days when he was in more pain to just transfer once from to the bed to the commode and then upon return from the commode back to the bed. Using a wheelchair takes a bit more skill to get into the bathroom beside the toilet and then he has to transfer from the wheelchair to the toilet and back into the wheelchair. That seemed like too much work when in pain, but now that he has pretty much no more pain he will usually use the wheelchair.
Right from day one he had a dislike for the commode because he could not do it himself as it required someone to actually push him since it has small maneuverable wheels. But over the last days he has figured out how to push himself just right so he can make it from his room to our bathroom without getting stranded away from a wall. So now he pretty much doesn't need any help with the basics while at home.
Yesterday was the big day where we returned to the hospital to have his pink and purple casts removed and switch to walking boots ... but no actual walking. He was sad to give up his casts. He thinks they are more stylish then walking boots. He also feels like the boots mean he should be able to walk and therefore feels more awkward being in a wheelchair. He'll get over it and get used to it. There are many people that have walking boots that are on crutches, we keep reminding him they are just a different form of a cast.
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| Casts off. The stitches are dissolvable, so he can now bath and clean up his foot and wait for the stitches to disappear |
For the next four weeks he will be in the boots and continue to be non-weightbearing. These are the most important healing weeks, with no stress on the tendons so that they can properly reattach to the navicular bone. He is allowed to take the boots off when sleeping or resting if he wants. The boots mostly serve as a reminder that he can't use his feet and as a protector so he doesn't accidently damage them, as well as so others realize that he cannot use them.
After four weeks he is allowed to slowly start walking, first in his boots and then he can try without his boots. This is different then what we were originally told, where we were told he would go six weeks in walking boots. But we figure we'll just wait and see how it goes in his walking boots and make sure he's comfortable before we decide to go without them. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
So far he isn't too happy with the boots. They are heavier and bulkier then the casts, but I'm sure with time he will get used to them. He did not have a good first night with them. He is allowed to take them off at night, but he's scared to do so, especially with his stiches not all the way healed yet. So he went to bed with his boots and I suggested he try during the day to take the boot off for an hour or so here and there when he's in his bed and once he gets more comfortable he can take them off at night. Well ... he had trouble sleeping with the boots, at first just couldn't get his feet comfortable and eventually they started to hurt and feel funny ... so finally after being awake for hours he gave in at 4 am and decided to take the boots off, he was asleep shortly after that.
Overall things have been going extremely well. So much to be thankful for!! The challenges we have encountered have been minor and the best part is that his pain has been so easily managed. The timing of all of this has also been great. With all the COVID stuff going on, we are thankful the surgery took place at all!! COVID has meant that Matthew is not missing out on sports and he won't be pushing himself to do more then he should in order to get back into sports. And this week they announced that Grades 7-12 will move to online learning until January 8th. While I'm not loving the school at home idea, my knees are definitely loving the fact that I won't have to carry Matthew into the house after school each day. My knees have not been too happy about climbing stairs with that much weight, the one time I came close to going down with Matthew when my right knee gave out. This was not something I had thought about when planning ahead for this.
Matthew was shown how to bum up or down the stairs before he left the hospital and we may have to resort to this if necessary. It brings it's own challenges because then he has to be lifted into his wheelchair from the ground, which is hard on the back. The other factor is that it's winter ... the stairs are either snow covered or wet. Normally we use the garage stairs, but with the rest of us using those and them being wooden it's hard to keep clean. Guess he's just going to have to accept a wet or dirty butt 🤷 Yesterday when we got home from the hospital the outside stairs were actually clean and dry so he did give it a try. With only 3 1/2 more weeks of non-weightbearing to go and him not needing to go out of the house every day anymore "We've Got This!" 😀
"And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen." Philippians 4:19, 20
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