Thanks for your patience for the update; I attempted to update a few times from the hospital, but when I hit save, it would just disappear.
The surgery went very well (long, but well). We arrived at about 11:30, check in and at 12:00 we took her back. We meet with pretty much every person that was going to be with surgery. They gave Sadie some anti-anxiety medication because she was feeling understandably nervous about the entire situation. The medication was suppose to make her feel a little drowsy and loopy, but it really just made her very emotional. She spent about 15 minutes very upset before they took her back. This made it a little harder than it all ready was to leave her. They took her back to the operating room and then we waited. It was nice that my mom and grandma were there and we just talked about all kinds of things to help time pass. A good friend showed up with Starbucks to get us through the hours and that was much appreciated! At 3:30 they paged us to tell us that the surgery was over and we then waited in a small conference room to meet with the surgeon.
We met with Dr.M (the surgeon) who told us that he didn't find what the expected. He said there was very little inflammatory tissue, but rather several marble like (although not smooth spheres) crystallized masses that came out of her ankle. He said there was a lot of them and that they filled a specific location in her ankle which he said was probably the complete reason for her pain. He removed them all (enough to fill one half of a large baby food jar) and sent them off to pathology. There is no clinical name for them and any idea of what they are is now speculation. We have been told not to worry, that they don't think they are anything to be concerned with. He then told us that they did take a little bit of fluid out of the back of her ankle, but again nothing like he expected.
After the meeting we waited again to be given a room where we could meet Sadie. That didn't happen until almost 5:30; it was a long wait! Once we arrived in the room, Sadie arrived moments later. Although she was a little tired, once she got settled and woke up a bit, she immediately wanted food. They told us that in order to go home the next day she needed to be eating, drinking and taking her pain medication by mouth (she was on a block so she could not feel her right leg from the knee down at all!). She had an incredible night other then being woken up every few hours for vitals and in the morning the doctor came in to check on her. With the doctors okay the block was turned off and oral medication started. She did amazing.. you would have never known she had just undergone surgery. She wanted to get up on crutches and walk (she was a bit stir crazy) and was just generally ready to go. They checked us out at 2:00, but we still had to wait for her medications, so we went to the pharmacy and waited for another hour and a half before we left.
She was so happy to be home! Last night went pretty well; we still had to get up to give her the medication every four hours (but this is much better then every 2!); about 3am she started feeling sick. At this time (now 8:00 she is starting to feel a bit better, but is defiantly a little more run down today). She is not experiencing any pain in her ankle which is just a huge answer to prayer. The doctor did say that the amount of stuff that was taken from her ankle may cause her to feel better immediately and therefore the surgery won't feel like that big of a deal.
What is next.. Sadie will be in a cast for the next 2 weeks; she will have that removed on the 26th and we will see how she is healing. She will hopefully start therapy at that point also. Therapy will be a visit to the therapist every 2 weeks with a new program set in place for that period of time. Once out of the cast she will be put in a boot and will be on "non-weight-bearing" for four to six weeks. From that it will be a gradual process to work back up to walking. In all of this we will also continue the treatment plan for her arthritis which means her next remicade is on the 30th.
We are hopeful that with the outcome of the surgery being different than we expected that this also means that the recovery may go faster, but only time will tell. We are just so pleased that she isn't in pain!!
Thanks for all your prayers and support and care for Sadie and our family! We appreciate you all so very much!
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