Pre-Op for Epiphysiodesis

We had Mary's pre-op for the Epiphysiodesis on Wed., Dec 12. 

• On the longer leg Dr. Scott will make a small incision on each side of the knee,
• He will cut less than a cm. square piece of the bone (distal femur), twist it 90 degrees, and reinsert it. 
• He will also scrape the growth plate really well because he wants to make sure that growth plate stops growing.
• They explained by just doing the two sides it confuses the bone enough to stop growing in that area.

• He did take another standing x-ray with a 3 cm block and confirmed he wants to keep the 8 plate in her left knee for longer, he says sometime it rebounds a little when you take it out

Other surgery info:

• No liquids after midnight the night before
• Surgery would be cancelled if she had a fever of 100.5 and/or had a very productive cold or hacking cough
• We currently have the first time slot (because they know we will be on time :-) ), unless a small baby needs the slot.
• The actual procedure is only 45 minutes so she should only be away for 2 hours.
• They will give her local pain medicine (Novocain) before they close her up, and bandage the knee.
• She should have loose sweats to wear home, no yoga pants
• She will be weight bearing as much as tolerated, use crutches if need to originally
• We said we would pass on the wheelchair offer
• As she knows from before the more you move the better
• PT is optional, sometimes the knee loses range of motion
• We have a pain medicine for at home, advises to stay ahead of the pain initially (as usual)
• He is going to order "the ice man" for us which wraps the knee and surrounds it with cool water to help reduce pain and swelling.
• Her dad was good to think about the orthodontic forsus (a metal version of rubber bands) Mary has right now for her braces. We were given the chief anesthesiologists contact information and was advised to have it removed for surgery because it limits the mouth opening. SO she is off to the orthodontist to have it removed.