I told my friend that my worry with my angel is that she will fidget with the dressing. The very next day, she’d scribbled on it with pen. She claimed it had been itchy. Thankfully I saw no red ink directly over the wound, but it was worrying.
Thursday, it had fully closed up. I put the dressing on to KEEP it safe and told her that if it was closed in the evening, she could finally bath the next day. That same afternoon, after days of the dressings always staying put, the dressing was now off the wound. I asked why she’d taken it off. She said it “just fell off.” Yeah right.
This is our worry as her parents and as her aunt (My friend who video calls them as much as she can.) We worry that her cognitive issues and her behaviours will slow down her healing.
And what do you know? Friday morning I arrive at the hospital early for my lung CT scan and I phoned home to check how the little ones were as I left before they’d woken up. The wound was now open. And I saw when I got home to dress it after they put on a normal plaster as a covering but no cleaning, that it’s back to oozing something. It had moved to blood and then had remained dry. Now we have a setback.
On Monday, the surgeon warned her that the wound NEEDS to close up and if she damages it, she slows down healing terribly as there’s not much blood flow to that area of the leg. And that if it stays open, the higher the chance of infection again. Plus..she can’t bath till it’s closed- my other issue with it! And I have to keep cleaning it, dressing it sometimes twice a day. And guys, that puts extra strain on me- the bending over. It needs to heal.
Meanwhile, we have another issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bddqnnyD6c0
That’s the video version but long story short, her brother has an infection and I need to sort him out twice a day and medicate. As I was doing his evening dressing yesterday, I caught my girl poking into the wound, and then telling me that her leg is sore. (She had stopped complaining of pain.) She didn’t know I’d seen her fiddling with her knee. So I reminded her that it’s a pity she’s not healing because now there are fun things she’s missing out on. (My hope being that the thought of the things she’s missing out on will overcome her huge attention seeking behaviour.)
Her dad went to go chat with her sick brother later, and he too saw her using an item to poke at her knee. I can’t recall if he said pen or what. But she’s at it. Just as we feared. She is sabotaging her own health and she’s only nine years old.
Tell me it gets better. Tell me these kinds of pathologies change, improve…I don’t know anyone who has had the prenatal history she has had. Well, I know the ones who had physical deformities and intellectual disabilities. But not this constellation of issues. It’s too much. The day time urine and night time bed wetting, the learning disorders, the struggles with academics, the self harming. All in one child whose only current label is “ADHD.”
If you’re a Christian, please pray with me that her knee heals fully. You can even pray that her behavioural issues calm down too. Today it’s still open. And I will bribe her too. Tell her we will celebrate with her favourite treat when it closes up and remains closed for three days. I’ll do almost anything. As the other surgeon we saw in ER said, “We need to save her leg.”
And me? We’ve moved into February. I was meant to work on getting my facet block injections in January. But I needed to be sure we wouldn’t have post op appointments etc. Instead, we now have to solve my daughter’s other issue. Moving rib in her left side right at the bottom. Moving and causing lots of pain as it rubs against the bones- I think I mentioned this. I don’t think I’ll ever get those injections done. And it’s spooky! The doctor has never ever had a patient with moving rib cartilage before. He even called in his other associate and she too had never felt such a thing in her life. He doesn’t know the next step. I’m waiting for him to get back to us after he speaks to a cardio thoracic surgeon and to the surgeon who did her knee operation. If I hear nothing by midday on Monday, I’ll search for surgeons myself. But I’m scared we will need to operate. And ribs and surgery are a whole new ball game for my daughter. I’d really thought my children had escaped living my life of a childhood marred by sickness, pain and hospitalizations. It seems not.
And I am sad.
They said I should write a book 