Medical Update - 9/17/09 (Part 1)

As I mentioned before, Annabelle has a Kyphosis. Basically, her spine has a significant bend just above her lower back. To look at her when she is dressed and sitting in a highchair or car seat, you would never notice. But when she lays on her tummy there is a good-sized bony bump. You can definitely feel it when you hold her.


Rather than rehash it all, you can check the previous post about what can or can’t be done about it.

The reason for our trip to the plastic surgeon this past Thursday was because it appears Annie is developing a pressure sore on that bump.

Pressure sores can range from “concerning” to downright deadly in the most extreme cases. So here is pressure Sore 101:

When you sit and watch a movie or even while you are laying in bed, your skeleton is being pulled downward by gravity. Your muscles, tissue and skin are serving as a cushion between your skeleton and your seat, chair or bed. The trouble is, the weight of your bones will cause some parts of your body to lose circulation. Your skeleton literally squeezes the blood out of spots in your muscles etc. This is what causes you to shift in your chair or roll over in bed. Your body is sending you signals of discomfort in an effort to get you to shift positions and keep the circulation flowing.

But what if you don’t have any feeling in certain parts of your body? How would you know to shift?

People who are wheelchair bound have to be constantly vigilant against pressure sores. In fact, some even go so far as to set a wristwatch alarm for every 30 minutes to remind them to shift positions.

Otherwise, areas of muscle and soft tissue will never get proper circulation and without circulation, the tissues in your body begin to die. This is what makes pressure sores so difficult. The sore starts from the inside and works it’s way out. By the time you see it on the skin, the damage is far more severe underneath.

On a scale of 1-10, (having absolutely no experience in pressure sores) I would put Annie’s at a two or three. We have started placing her on her tummy for sleeping and she has adapted just fine. I went to the local fabric store and bought some 1-inch-thick foam, cut out a square about the size of Annie’s torso and then cut a square out of the middle where her bump is. We use the foam whenever we place her in her highchair or car seat so that we minimize any pressure on the sore.

Her skin is healing and the spot is looking much better than it did a few days ago.

The catch-22 is that Annabelle needs to wear her body brace to help slow the curvature of her spine but the brace itself is causing the pressure sore. So for now, the plastic surgeon has ordered us to not use the brace and we need to go back to the Ortho doc for a new consult and either a modification to her brace if not a new brace altogether.

We will keep everyone posted!

I will post a 6-month outlook post in the next day or so that will give everyone an overview of what our medical calendar and looks like and what can be expected over the next few months.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support – it means more than you know.