It was the office visit from hell. We get there and before we go in Rod tells me that she is not having surgery period and I didn't say anything because I figure when he hears what the doctor has to say he might change his mind (there I go thinking again.) Well we do the paper work and finally get called and the nurse wants me to undress her and put her into a gown so I say OK and that is where it all starts to go wrong.
As soon as I put her on the table to undress her she starts to scream and bite herself and fight me. Well I finally get her undressed and they tell me she has to have one more x-ray so I carry her over to x-ray and they want me to sit her in a chair (Shelby can't sit by herself) so I tell them she has to be laying for the film and the woman seemed to get a little pissy about that. So we get the x-ray done after much more screaming and we go back to the room where Rod was waiting and I tell him he needed to take her for a minute so I can take a breath but she didn't want him.
So as I am sitting in the only chair in this tiny hot room trying my best to get her to calm down and stop biting herself Dr Watenburger walks in and he asked me if this was Shelby's normal attitude so I quickly tell him no she is usually very sweet and has a smile for everyone that it must be because the only time I undress her at the doctors is for a procedure so he rubbed her back and told me to get her dressed witch was yet another battle and she rod and I all three have scars from that one.
After we dressed her and put her back in her chair she quietened down and Dr. Watenburger came back in and said........ We don't have to do anything right away but she does need surgery so maybe we will do it during the summer and I responded......... What that soon! Dr Frick had said something about trying a brace first to see if we can put surgery off until she is like ten so he says....
We have 4 options 1 do nothing and she will continue to worsen until she starts having heart and lung problems. 2 Do a complete spinal fusion but that would not let her spine grow and she isn't through growing yet. 3 brace her and see if we can put off surgery. 4 Do a partial fusion with lengthening rods.
Now he said that since we are going to wait until summer to do surgery it is worth trying to brace her and see if that helps any but to be prepared for it not to work and to also be prepared that she might not be able to handle bracing. (we go tomorrow to be fit for a brace.) He said that if we do go forward with the surgery in the summer he would opt for the partial fusion due to her age for growth reasons.
Now tell me how perfect this is we get home and tonight on the health channel they are showing two girls that had scoliosis surgery one had a complete fusion and the other had the partial fusion and Rod got to see first hand how much it helped those two girls after the surgery but as cynical as he is he still isn't convinced that Shelby would be helped by having surgery.
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