<p>BHG,</p>
<p>It’s day two - the worst. Always. It will slowly then quickly get better. Hang in there - he needs his sleep. The truma of the surgery itself is really hard on the body the first few weeks. Also the anesthesia. As he comes out of it then there will be the narcotics. Some do better than others. If he is sensitive or allergic to either he will have more reactions. Ask the doctors then to change his pain meds and if need be up them too for a few days while he is getting over the worse. Too, invariably he has swollowed a lot of blood that to will make him feel sick to his stomach.</p>
<p>Alls well though, in the end. You should start seeing small improvements over the next few days. It’s always harder watching helplessly. In the meantime, your encouragement and light hugs will do more for him than anything else toward his recuperation.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to take care of yourself too! It does get better!</p>
<p>Valerie</p>
<p>Carolyn, Curmudgeon (child surgery)</p>
<p>To all:</p>
<p>I just wanted to stop in and say congrats to all the Ss and Ds who have come through their Jaw (orthodonture, oral surgeries) with excellent results and are well on the mend after a few weeks of pain and difficulties. To all the parents too; for their anxiety and love for their children in the midst of complicated surgeries and their recoveries. Also, to those that will be going through this surgery later in the summer I wish you well…</p>
<p>My visit is to give hearts and thoughts to all because I can truly empathize. My children have very small mouths and orthodonture visits and appliances were started when they were 7/8 years old. My D who is turning 29 still wears a night appliance and her chin could use an implant to bring her lower face forward a bit. As a child she went through many oral surgeries and braces for years. Her bite was corrected over the years by exceptionally talented orthodontists. Today however, her teeth have begun to soften and she has now started dental implants to help preserve her ability to eat, breath and lessen any TMJ arthritis or misalignment of teeth or bite as she ages. My younger S started wearing a palate brace when he was 7 yrs old that constantly had to be screw tightened and moved every few days to help widen his upper palate as he was growing. Excruciating. He is turning 20 yrs old and still sees the orthodontist for his teeth and bite placement, along with wearing a nightly brace. But, thankfully, neither one of them had to have upper palate breaking nor lower jaw surgery. </p>
<p>This reminds me too, of when this S was little at 6 ½ months I was getting very concerned because he was having difficulty sitting up on his own. By 7months he was not only sitting up on his own but walking in between the furniture!. I spent the next two months on the floor with him under pediatric and orthopedic orders to teach and encourage him to rock back and forth and then crawl for his motor physical development. When he was nine months old he was running! At this time too, I remember my father came to visit and being an architectural engineer always had pen and markers and pencils in his shirt pocket. On this visit my father picked my S up to put on his lap. Within a matter of seconds the child went right for my fathers shirt pocket and without hesitation or any difficulty took a felt tip pen out of his pocket opened it and then without any difficulty put the cap back on and put the pen back into my fathers shirt pocket!!</p>
<p>Obviously, my S was moving fast in dexterity and motor function. However, by 13 months he was placed in orthopedic shoes with an iron brace (flat rod) that was attached to each sole of his shoes with screws that had to be adjusted every few days to turn the feet in the shoes to correct a hip displacement and allow his hips and spine to develop correctly without any spinal curvatures or disc displacement in his hip for future walking as he grew. He wore this A frame contraption for 14 months mostly at night and for only a few hours everyday. Somehow or other, he managed to go to sleep at night and turn his body when he needed to, and crawl and pull himself up when he wanted to! My H and I always knew when he was awake in the morning because we could hear from the nursery right next to our bedroom his A frame shoe apparatus go thump as he turned to stand up in his crib to get on with his day!</p>
<p>Why do I share these stories with you? It is because I truly empathize and to remark on how resilient children can be. It really is amazing to see how brave they can be and inspiring to see their innate spirit of strength to survive and get on with living life.</p>
<p>I remember too, at the age of eleven, when I was first diagnosed with scoliosis and a congenital intervertabra fused disc at the lower back which was not allowing me to be as flexible with my body as someone elses. At that time my orthopedic doctor felt that I only had another inch of growing to do and felt the curve although curved in a multi S shape from my sacral all the way up into my skull was not enough to do surgery on or even put me in a Milwaukee brace. </p>
<p>A few years later, two of my H.S. classmates had scoliosis and underwent spinal fusions with rods who were in body plaster casts and bedridden for a whole year to help correct or should I say stopped the curvatures in their bodies from getting worse. It was remarkable how they adjusted in that year of being bedridden, then the months of physical therapy to tone up atrophied muscles. Both came out with flying colors and to see them today one would never know what they went through as teenagers or know they have rods with plates and nuts and screws in their backs.</p>
<p>I however, have a different story. I fell into a category of about 3% who continue to curve after bone growth had stopped. Today they call it adult scoliosis. Through the years I got progressively worse and my bones were starting to degenerate and become arthritic as well. When I was in my forties and the scoliosis curvature was starting to effect my lungs and heart as well as my bladder and bowel along with my ability to walk, I underwent 3 spinal fusion surgeries with instrumentation and then also a lamenectomy and discectomy at the L5, S 1-2 of my sacral back. I am fused from the Thoracic 9 (T9) down to the Lumber(T4). One of these surgeries had an instrument failure meaning breakage and had to be redone. Another surgery had to be redone because I had two bilateral fractures at the T11 and 12 vertebras behind the rods. Today, I need more fusion surgery down into the sacral area but have held out so far. After all I am well into my 50s and not the greatest surgical candidate around with Degenerative Disc Disease and osteoarthritis throughout most of my body.</p>
<p>To complicate matters, the spinal curvature up in my skull and oral bite was progressively getting worse with an arthritic disc displacement in the TMJ joint. Orthodontist and oral surgeons wanted to break my upper palate and lower jaw and reconstruct the bones of my lower face. I ended up not having these surgeries but again in my 40s after years in a dental chair already having my teeth and bite attended to, I ended up in the long run having two major oral surgeries to reconstruct every tooth in my mouth and had 12 dental implants placed to correct teeth and bite alignment.</p>
<p>My jaw is a little off but I feel at my age it is better than having jaw and palate reconstruction. One of my oral surgeons said to me quite frankly if you were going to have to make your living in the entertainment world then maybe I would consider doing reconstruction of you jaw and palate. However, your not, so a little misalignment of your lower jaw gives you character And whats more important the work that we have done on your teeth and bite already has improved the mechanics of its operation and has lessened the arthritis in the TMJ. Today, I wear a night appliance to keep the arthritis in the TMJ joint as flexible as possible.</p>
<p>The point of my stories are that children who have to endure these kinds of orthodontic and orthopedic surgeries although painful in the long run fair much better than older adults whose bones stop growing and remaking themselves at 35 yrs old.</p>
<p>I empathize and applaud those teenagers who must face these procedures, but I mostly cheer them on for their young recuperative ages for long term improvement results.</p>
<p>For all the parents, this is such a wonderful support group on CC to help all get through the rough times, and then later have a place to high five when success means the worst is over.</p>
<p>To Your Children!</p>
<p>Valerie</p>