Friday, March 8, 2013

Kellan's Dimple

I have briefly mentioned here before that Kellan has had some issues since he was born.  He was born with (I hate this term) a birth defect called a Sacral Dimple. A sacral dimple ( I am going to spare him the picture of his on the Internet) is a small indentation on the lower back above the crease in his butt.  Our pediatrician found it when she was examining him shortly after he was born.  Most cases of Sacral dimples end up being nothing but Kellan's was questionable because we could not see the end of the dimple and it was farther away from his crease and curved off to the right.  Leading our pediatrician to believe there was a chance his spine could be tethered.  A normal spinal cord hangs freely and when you have a tethered cord there is tissue that limits it's movement and affects movement and feeling in the legs and can cause issues with the bowel and bladder.  I asked anyone that came through my hospital door what they knew about it and the consensus was that they saw them relatively often but Kellan's was unique.  It was like no one wanted to be the one to tell me bad news.

The unfortunate thing about getting that kind of news is that although Kellan seemed to be moving his legs alright, he was still so young to really know what kind of movement he was truly getting and we didn't know if it would effect anything else.  He had an ultra sound done in the hospital and after a lot of confusion and a lot of frustration on our part, we finally got the test read two weeks later that ruled out the tethered spine.  Talk about worried, sleepless nights and a lot of bitchy phone calls from me to our neurologists office.

There was however a little bit of epidural blood hanging around at the end of the spine.  Which brings us to our latest ultra sound.  We have been letting him grow a bit to see if it would clear up on it own or if he would have to have a surgery to remove the spot of blood.  I've been praying around the clock that the spot would be gone because the last thing I want is for him to be put under and for anyone to go near his spine. 

We have yet to get the results that were supposed to be read by our (bone head) neurologist but the ultra sound tech said one of two things...that it could be gone because she didn't see anything OR he could have grown too much and we will need an MRI to see it better.  So we wait.  Whatever the outcome at this point,  I'm just considering it a gift from God that his spine is in perfect shape.  Adam and I were getting prematurely emotional about him having issues being a normal kid.  You never want anything to restrict your child from doing whatever they want.  Keep your fingers crossed it's cleared itself up!



Nakey baby ready to go. 



Adam cannot stand to see his boys upset. EVER. 
 
He was such a good sport. 




 
Starting to get a little agitated.  



 
It looks like Adam is holding his hand here but Kellan was actually sucking on his knuckle to soothe himself.  It was precious and heartbreaking all at the same time. 

 
  The second they were done Adam elbowed right by me to get to pick him up first. He likes to be the hero.  He was basically whimpering at this point.  Poor baby. It wasn't even that bad. 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Saying a prayer for your little man!

Jenny H said...

let me guess you see Dr. McLanahan?

Adam, April & Aidan said...

Close! Same practice. We see Heafner. Well I say we see him but I only briefly saw him in the hospital. So rude. Since then I've seen Amy his nurse, who is no longer with him and we've spoken to his secretary Sharon who is a total waste of time. Familiar?