Another Round for Isaac

Well, unfortunately, Isaac’s next surgery date is upon us.  This will make 8 operations in this calendar year for our little Isaac, but we are hopeful this will be the last one for almost a year.  This surgery is on Nov. 14^th and we will be lengthening the rods in his back among other things.

            After Isaac’s last surgery, he had lost about 95% of the use he had previously in his legs and has been slowly relearning how to use them.  We still don’t know if he will ever regain his old movements like before, but we continue to be hopeful. They had told us to give him 6-9 months of recovery before making any ‘assumptions’ on how much use of his legs he has. We have to keep reminding ourselves of this, and the fact that it has only been a little over 3 months since that surgery.

            This surgery will accomplish two things.  First, Dr. S & Dr. I will insert chest tubes over the rods that are in his back to hold their position, and they will then remove the rods and leave the tubes in the place. This will allow them to get an MRI without any metal to interfere, so they can get a very good picture of his spinal cord. There is not an MRI in the OR, so they will actually have to close him up to take him to get his MRI, and then bring him back to the OR, reopen the sutures, and then at that time, they will replace the fasteners holding his growth rods on his collarbone with metal hooks instead of the nylon straps that currently hold the rods in place.  They will also lengthen the rods slightly to allow for growth.

            We are anticipating the surgery lasting 6 to 8 hours and then IZ will be at CMH for 4-5 days before coming home.  It is our hope that this will only cause a minor delay in his overall recovery.  They will only have to open the upper incision, so his healing time will hopefully be shorter. We remain as hopeful and optimistic as possible.   

            Thank you to everyone for all the support, prayers, and kind words as Isaac continues this lifelong road of progressing as much as possible.  We sincerely appreciate it. 

            As always, we’ll keep the blog up to date as we receive updates during the procedure, as best we can. Love to you all.