Monday, October 12, 2009

Update on my son.

I wrote a few days ago about my oldest son. He hurt his knee playing football, and the ER said he fractured his knee cap.

I made him an appointment with an orthopod as soon as possible. We took the x-rays and the report with us. It turns out that the doctor does not think that he broke his knee on Sunday, but it looks like one of two things. It is either an old fracture (the ER doctor mentioned this also). This could be possible, last year he was playing football (the end-zone was a concrete walk-way--boys, you gotta love them) he landed on his knee on the concrete and split it open. We had to go pick him up, took him to the ER, they stitched up the knee, but never took an x-ray of it.
Or, the other possibilit is called a "bi-partate patella". The doctor explained to us that as babies our patella is cartledge and it hardens into bone. Some people, the patella heals in 2 pieces rather than forming together. This is quite possible with my son. He has had other bone anomalies. He had cranial stenosis as a baby. The seams of the skull and the soft spot on his head healed long before they were supposed to. He had to have surgery, a craniectomy, to re-build his skull. (talk about a stressful time for me). and he has a weird shaped rib.
He was supposed to get an MRI, but during the appointment questioning, I remembered he has aneurysm clips in his head from the craniectomy. They are 17 years old, so we don't know if they are metallic or not. We don't want to take any chances so he can't have an MRI.
The doctors office called me back today to tell me to schedule a CT scan and give me the pre-cert number for his insurance. This will tell us if it is a fracture or a bi-partate patella, and it will also tell us why his knee is swollen and has some fluid in it.
The problem I am having now, is getting him to wear the immobilizer. He hates it. My son is 6'1" 220 lbs of solid rock. I can't even wrestle him down to make him wear it.
By the way, he won the driver's test fight. Unfortunately, he failed the test. He went too far over the white line at 2 stop signs. Oh well, we will re-schedule.
I will keep you updated when we have more info on his knee.

Soft Hugs to All
Laurie D.

2 comments:

  1. Im glad they are doing more testing on his knee. You will feel better knowing what is causing the swelling and whether or not it was the old fracture or the "big fancy medical term". Sorry he failed his driving test. Blame it on the bum knee and hopefully he will pass it next time.

    How are you feeling?

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  2. I agree with Denise on this one. Better to have it checked out now so they can see what the problem is,
    Sorry he failed his driving test, but better luck next time!

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