jmgoyder

I just got permission to name the wonderful surgeon who fixed Son’s spine (you need to see previous post). His name is Peter Woodland and I am trying very hard not to fall in love with him – hehe! Son took this photo from Peter’s computer at our last appointment.

And here is a picture I took today of Son’s brace-free back:

Thank you, Peter Woodland!

Those who have been reading this blog for awhile will already know the story of Son’s scoliosis and surgery, but newcomers may not, so I thought I’d do a little pictorial recap here. This is because, yesterday, Son was told that he could finally, after over three months, take his post-operative spinal brace off and leave it off for good –  YEEHA!

Before his scoliosis became so severe (it went from around a 40% curve to nearly 80% in the space of around eight months when he was 15), he was a passionate football player and had tentative dreams of pursuing football professionally. He was very good at it.

However, despite taking Son to numerous series’ of appointments with a chiropractor, physiotherapist, osteopath, kinesiologist, personal trainer and others (all of whom were wonderful and possibly prevented his scoliosis from getting even worse), the following X-ray speaks for itself. Surgery, which we hadn’t contemplated before, became a matter of inevitabilty rather than an option, so we saw a surgeon and Son was told he would have to have surgery and that he must stop playing football immediately. As this was two days before a school football trip in which Son was the star attraction (of course he wasn’t the star attraction, but I’m his mother so I like to say things like that), the devastation of this news was difficult to deal with and I will never forget Son’s sobs after that appointment.

So, on Valentines Day this year (Feb. 14 2012) Son underwent major surgery which took, I think, over eight hours and in which twelve of his vertebrae were fused, using quite a bit of titanium, and bone from the bone bank (a bit like a blood bank). I will spare you the gory details as there are plenty of youtubes on how this works. The following pictures show Son with the electrody things in his hair, the evening before surgery (we were allowed to go out for dinner!), the second is in intensive care after the surgery, the third is us mucking around and trying to be silly, and the fourth is Son a week later in the rehabilitation unit with the teddy I bought him and some gravy and chips!

And this is Son in his brace, standing 3 inches taller than he was (I kid you not!) with my mother – and another picture of him feeding the gang with some visitors.

Taking the brace off after all this time (Son had to wear it except when sleeping), has been, for him, wonderful but also a bit scary. He said today, before he went into town with his friend, “I feel a bit naked!” But, apart from that, the exhilaration of such a fantastically successful surgical outcome takes my breath away. Son is a new man!

In the next post I would like to show pictures of now, and to thank the surgeon publically, but I need to check if that is okay with him before I mention his name.

Meanwhile, Son has decided that instead of playing professional football, he will become a rock star.

And he will!