Lets talk about Pressure sores

I am a SENIOR at ASU here in Tempe. I am online so I am able to do most of my homework at night. I haven't done so bad considering all the stuff that goes on in our world. Just therapy alone takes up 3 days and appointments take up a few other days and a 3 year old takes up a lot more!

But my nights are filled with homework and reading and writing and rewriting.

After finals though, I can blog. Which I LOVE!


So tonight we are going to talk about Pressure sores. That is right decubitus ulcers.

The last few months ( OK maybe year)  we have been dealing with one on our foot. It stinks!

The curve of his cute deformed feet are actually a bony contracture and it causes pressure. The more we wait on his surgery the more contractors he will develop. But we have gone in to have this pressure sore looked at a few times and have been able to stay in office with our pediatrician. With surgery coming up, Dr. Emily ( the Ortho) needed clearance from our Pediatrician, neurologist and neurosurgery. We got 2 of the 3 super easy but needed a full check up with the pediatrician.

Dr. Carrol didn't love the look of our current pressure sore so he sent us to a local Podiatrist to have it taken care of. He said it would heal faster and that he might be able to get us a hard boot for Tyler to use so he wasn't walking on his foot. We didn't need the boot because we got our brace ordered from Bret ( the next post!!) and so we really just needed his sore taken care of.

In order to have surgery no open wounds can be on his body. So this was a big deal.

This is what his sore looked like the second day and before we saw the podiatrist:

This is what our pediatrician saw and this is what I saw and this is what makes me have anxiety. this is not OK.  Pressure sores can be so so bad. 

The podiatrist took a scalpel and literally shaved off the dead skin layer by layer until he got down to fresh skin. He showed me how to clean the edges every night, how to file it down and how to fix it so that we have little to no rubbing on a regular basis so that he can still wear a shoe and brace. Until we get his feet fixed I have a feeling ( even after) that this will be an on going issue.

At night we get out our "boo boo kit" and work really hard to do our best so that Tyler doesn't cry over his foot hurting. Ironically this is about the ONLY thing that he has continually talked about as hurting. It is really sad.

Me and Dr. Grayson gear up to take care of these feet.

And I get my gear on to not infect the wound- 

The pads are to keep pressure off, the band aid is so that Tyler will stop crying. I then make a magic spell up and put on magic socks to keep Tyler from pulling this stuff off. It rarely works but it is a start. 

Last week we got Tyler's foot clear! We were down to a PIN HOLE and we were down to using an emery board on his feet only. No edges were needing to be cut. Thursday we were discharged and we were to call if anything came up or we needed a shave in order to look even better.

Today.......... WE HAD TO CALL!!!!

To be continued.......................