On Monday, June 4th, we went to Larkin’s checkup appointment for her skull fracture. We were told when we were released from LSU that we had to follow up with a pediatric neurosurgeon in a month. It took forever to get the appointment because one of the doctors at LSU coded the follow up appointment as an inpatient consult instead of an outpatient…if you have ever dealt with LSU, you KNOW how difficult it is to get anything done. We were supposed to be at Sutton’s/Schumpert at 12:30 for an xray and our appointment was at 1:30. Surprisingly, we made it to the appointment on time…radiology was pretty busy. We didn’t have to wait but about 20 minutes in the waiting room…BUT, we waited in the actual room for an hour before seeing the dr. 
And, of course, Larkin fell asleep literally seconds before she walked in. She felt of her head and said she could definitely still feel the fracture on the right side (which is the side that LSU told us the fracture was on). She asked if she had had any swelling and I responded with “yes, in the beginning but it was all on the left side…the opposite side of where the fracture is…which they told us at lsu was common in head trauma.” She started feeling around on the left side and said “there is a fracture over here too” and then she felt across the top of her head and said “and the fracture continues all the way across the top of her head…I can feel it” My response “WHAT?!?!?! We were not told of any other fractures” She said that it should heal but her concern was that in a skull fracture of her age, their brain (along with everything else) is growing so rapidly that the brain can push on the skull/fracture and keep the fractures from healing. That is called a Growing Skull Fracture and is not that common. 
She told us to watch for pulsating in the areas of the fractures, swelling, vomiting, or any other unusual activity/behavior.
If the fracture doesn’t start healing, she will have to have surgery. I am not sure exactly what the surgery would entail. I didn’t ask. Honestly, I just thought this was a precautionary visit and they would look at her and say “the fracture isn’t completely healed but it’s close…she’s fine..see you in 6 months”. However, that is NOT what happened. I was quite floored..shocked…very, very disappointed, scared, etc….so my normal OCD self that has 238 questions waiting in my head to fire at the dr just wasn’t prepared. We left pretty baffled. As we were walking out to the car, the questions started coming “how could this be…how could they have not known that her fracture was that extensive…can we treat her normally…can we go on vacation…” I mean the questions were endless.
After we got home late that afternoon, I decided that I would make an appointment the next day to take Larkin to see our pediatrician (Dr. SLusher). I had a little teeny bit of concern that she might have an ear infection…but not really..that was just my excuse to feel okay about going to GC. Well, Dr. Slusher stayed in there with us for about 45 minutes (sorry if you were one of the people waiting to see her). She was pretty shocked by this new information too. In fact, she looked up the original ct scan from NLMC. The radiologist there said that the fracture he observed on the scan was on the left side (which is where the swelling was)…but that is the opposite of where the neurologist at LSU identified a fracture. SO, there is major confusion on which side and why all of it wasn’t identified in the beginning or why it didn’t show up on a ct scan initially. Who knows…it really just confuses and aggravates me. We have to go back to the neurosurgeon in 6 weeks so I will be more prepared with questions. 
Dr. Slusher did call the neuro and I got a call back from Slusher today. She said that she is still confused about the sides of the fracture. BUT, she said that she felt better now that she had talked to them and she said that we are free to go on vacation. :)
Oh and btw, she did have ear infections…yep, TWO…both ears were infected. SO, we wont be doing tubes this month. We will have to get the fracture situation cleared up but when we do, we (Larkin…not really “we”) will be getting tubes.
So there you go…so much for being so certain of things…
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