Wilkins World: Zeke's Doctor's Appointment

My wonderful boss (and good friend) let me have Friday off so I could get everything ready and head out of town earlier. I was thrilled because that meant I wouldn't have to drive in the dark.

Zeke is a great traveler and we didn't even stop on our way. Unfortunately, that put us in Minneapolis right at rush hour and ended up making the trip take an extra hour.

We picked up my sister-in-law and took her out for supper since she didn't have her kids and Zeke was hungry. We went to a place that was a trendy sports bar & grill, but they had made the back room into a lodge. It even had one of those chandeliers that was made of antlers! The best part was that each table had a tv. Annessa and I could visit, Zeke watched the Disney channel and ate pizza and then followed it up with ice cream. We ended up spending four hours there and when we got ready to leave, Zeke was the one saying he wanted to stay longer!

We spent the night at Annessa's, partly to visit and partly so I wouldn't have to spend money on a hotel. Thursday morning came way too soon. We got up at 5am so that we could get ready and drive to the hospital, with a stop for coffee, of course.

We arrived at Gillette Children's Hospital shortly before 7am. As we were riding the elevator to the 3rd floor, the doors opened and Zeke's orthopedic surgeon walked in! She recognized Zeke right away! And in a hospital that size and as many different patients as they see every day, I was impressed. It was nice to be able to visit with her for a minute.

After we checked in, various members of the team approached us with questions and paperwork. Zeke stood on the scale and they measured his height and weight.

The MRI doctor asked if we wanted to try the procedure without sedation. It's always healthier and less evasive to go without sedation, but I wasn't sure that Zeke could stay still as long as they needed him too. The actual procedure would take about an hour. Because we were also dealing with a time factor (we were scheduled to meet with his orthopedic doctor/team the same day and that takes quite a bit of juggling and I knew I still had a 4 hour + drive home when everything was complete) So if we tried without sedation and it didn't work, we would have to start the whole procedure over from the begining, including consultation, sedation, MRI and a recovery time from the sedation. That whole process would probably take 3 or more hours if we had to go that route.

So we had to make a decision to either try the procedure without sedation knowing it might not work and then a lot of time would have been lost trying, or just sedate him and procede with our day as scheduled.

Then the doctor told me that Zeke could watch a movie while in the MRI. Once I heard that, I immediately told them to try without the sedation.

They took us back into a pre-op room and we got Zeke ready for the procedure. Lots of nurses came in and out and bombarded me with questions, which I answered as we were getting Zeke ready. Because he wasn't wearing anything with metal, he was allowed to remain in his own clothes. Everything was going well until the doctor had to put in the IV, which would put the dye into his body.

Zeke deals with pain very well. I wasn't anticipating his reaction. When the doctor got ready to insert the needle, Zeke freaked out! We ended up with myself practically laying on the top half of his body and three nurses holding down the rest of him. He fought like crazy but the doctor was quick and had the needle in before we knew it. As soon as it was in, Zeke relaxed again.

He was excited to watch a Diego movie. Once he was settled in on the MRI table, they put some big goggles on him. They look like what gamers use when they're playing 3D games. Then they fitted him with some big headphones. He actually did well for the begining of the MRI before he started to move around. The doctor told me they were able to get about 50% of the images so they were just going to keep trying without sedation. I guess ultimately they still got what they needed though. We were done with the MRI by 8:46am.

Here's a picture of Zeke getting ready for the MRI.

Once the imaging was complete, I checked in on the 4th floor to see if we could get his X-rays done earlier then scheduled. Remember, because we didn't sedate, we were done much more quickly than originally anticipated. They were able to get him in and took lots of X-Rays of his feet. Done in X-Ray at 9:22am.

We were hoping to get into the orthopedic team earlier than our scheduled 12:30 appointment. I again checked in at the desk to let them know we were ready whenever the team was. They gave us a pager/buzzer just like you get at Olive Garden. When it goes off, you check in at the desk for your next appointment.

Zeke hadn't had anything to eat or drink since the night before in anticipation of the MRI sedation, so we stopped at the new 4th floor coffee shop for a donut and juice.

Then we went for a walk down the new bridge/walkway. It's on the 4th floor and connects the older part of Gillette with the newer building on the other side of the road. Here is Zeke looking through the binoculars at the Minnesota Capital building.

The newer building houses the rehabilitation clinic, like physical, occupational and speech therapies. Their waiting room has a fishtank with sea horses. I could have watched them for hours but Zeke was ready to move on again.

Our pager went off so we went back to check in at the desk. One of our doctor's nurses was there and explained that they were waiting on the results of the MRI and would see us as soon as they had that information. Meanwhile, the doctor would like some more X-Rays of Zeke's ankles. So back to X-ray we went. We were done with the 2nd round of X-rays at 10:33am.

And so we waited.

Here's Zeke's favorite part of his favorite waiting room.

At 11:30am, we were sent to Purple 7 to meet with the orthopedic team.

Here's Zeke waiting in the exam room.

Still waiting.

By noon, we had met with the nurse and met with the intern. Eventually, the main orthopedic doctor came in.

Here is the shortest possible version of the results:

*The doctor is not overly concerned with the growth on his toe. When they looked back over previous X-rays as far back as 2008, the toe was crooked and the growth appeared to be there. Whatever it is isn't growing quickly. They will do a biopsy after the scrapes heal on his toe heal.

*They will call me within the next two weeks to schedule our next round of appointments.

*Within a month or two, we will be back at the hospital for aproximately a 3 day stay.

Day 1 will involve another gait analysis (see previous posts - he's done this before) in the morning, more X-rays, and then a consultation with the orthopedic team in the afternoon.

Day 2 will involve surgury to remove the plates and screws from his previous surgery and also will involve a bit of work on his right foot. They will remove a small wedge of bone in his foot so that he will be able to place his foot flat on the ground. Right now, his foot turns inward. He'll be in a boot cast on that foot only for about 4 weeks. During this surgery, they'll also do a biopsy of the growth on his toe.

Day 3 will be surgery recovery and hopefully discharge to go home. All indications are that this is a fairly minor and routine surgery.

We finished with the doctor and left the hospital at almost 1pm. Way earlier than I expected!

Zeke wanted pizza so I stopped by Little Caeser's and picked up pizza to eat on the way home.

We still ran into some heavy traffic, even at that early time of the day. I drove for a couple of hours but was really tired from the lack of sleep the night before so I pulled into a park and let Zeke play for a few minutes while I got out and walked around.