The Road to Recovery

Zane was discharged from the hospital on Friday after 11 days of being inpatient. While the surgery itself went well, Zane struggled with acute respiratory failure, which took him on a journey through bipap, oxygen supplementation, breathing treatments, oxygen saturation monitoring, and a capnography study. But after a few nights and days on room air, the team on the airways floor felt it was safe to let Zane come home.

It will be a slow recovery since he’s still experiencing pain. Personally, I cannot imagine how horrible it feels to have your spine straightened in addition to living with internal hardware and dealing with the pain from incisions. Poor kiddo.

On top of that, it appears Zane has yet another UTI. I took him to his pediatrician today. The doc has decided to wait for the culture to grow—or not—before making a decision about antibiotics. Before we headed out to the doctor’s office this morning, Zane had another horrid seizure—much like the one he experienced in the hospital. It lasted over three minutes, so I gave him Diazepam. The sweet boy can’t seem to catch a break. And yet…he smiles. Clearly, he’s happy to be home.

Zane will remain out of school for at least the next two weeks in order to continue his recovery. When he does return to school, the staff will need to be trained on new ways of positioning, transferring, and seating Zane. We’ve been told he absolutely loves the swing at school. Unfortunately, he can’t use it anymore because it won’t be supportive enough for his spine L As for right now, Zane is getting a lot of rest and watching more movies than he’s seen in a long time. Big brother is jealous, but my suspicion is that Zane would rather be in school than at home recovering from a major surgery.