Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Chordee Repair 7 Months Later

A reader asked me to post an update and fortunately our son had an appointment yesterday, otherwise I'd have nothing to say. It's been about seven months since our son had his chordee repair done and six months since the last time we saw the doctor.

The urologist says that our soon looks good and that he is happy with the result of the surgery.

That being said, we're not happy. Both my husband and I regret allowing the surgery. Mainly because now instead of pointing down, our son's penis points to the left. This is okay with the doctor (his words: Left, right, up are all okay. Down is not. We fixed the down.) The doctor asked if we had seen him have an erection. No. We haven't. The doctor said that with an erection, his penis should point straight. Great. So do guys have erections when they pee? So now instead of peeing on his feet, he'll pee on the person next to him. Yes, that's a joke, hopefully it'll never get that bad. I guess it could fix itself?

I also asked about the extra bumps underneath and was told it would fix itself as he grew bigger or straighten out with an erection. That still doesn't help the locker room type thing. Will other boys notice a difference?

I struggle with the outcome of this decision. I still have regret that he's now circumcised. I feel like I should have protected him more and I pray that he won't hate me for this one day. As parents we're supposed to do what's best for our children. Sure, I suppose in the eyes of the medical community, we did what we were supposed to do. We had a doctor "fix" the problem. But...deep down...I feel that it created other issues that we'll have to deal with. Maybe we should have just left it alone and let him decide when he was older.

I'm sure that would be hard if he decided to do the surgery at age 16 or 20. Maybe he'd hate us for not doing it. It's so hard to understand something that you can't see or feel and that he can't either - at least for another 16 - HOPEFULLY MORE - years! It wasn't hurting him. Wasn't bothering him. Only the doctors saw a problem and that was only because our son was there for a different issue. Had we not had that issue, we wouldn't have known for a long, long time. Was it really a problem? Or more the surgeon's "need" to cut?

I'm not trying to sway anybody out there one way or another. Just trying to tell our story. I couldn't find a lot on chordee repair after the fact and I wanted to make sure there was something out there people could read. Maybe the surgery is the way to go. Maybe not. Maybe your child's is worse than ours. Just make an informed decision.

I'll update when I have new information :) Thanks for reading and if you have questions, leave a comment.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Insanity Month 2

Month 2 started with a 25 minute fit test - okay, no big deal AND then a 59 minute and some odd seconds workout. Seriously? I had a hard enough time finding 40+ minutes to workout during the day, now I have to find an hour. And with the fit test, it would be an hour and 25 minutes. With 6 kids, that's kind of impossible.

I did the fit test in the morning. I went to do the workout in the afternoon. I got 4 minutes into it. When they started kicking their feet over their heads in the air, I paused it, laughed, and decided there was no way I was ready for this yet.

My husband and I decided to do month 1 again. I decided that since my waist is what I really wanted to work on was that I'd do the workouts when I could and add in the cardio ab workout. If I didn't have a lot of time that day, I'd just do the cardio abs.

That's the plan now. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Insanity - Done With Month One

Finished month one over the weekend. Four weeks of grueling exercise. Some of it wasn't so bad, some was. After a couple weeks, it got kind of boring, but I kept going.

This week is the core cardio and balance. It's nice to have a break from the fast paced stuff, but my shoulders and arms are killing me!

Measurements. I don't know off hand. I could get off my butt and go look at my paper, but I'm too lazy. I started around 110lbs. I'm not doing this because I'm overweight. I'm doing it because I have a few inches of baby flab that need to go away and I want to be in shape. I'm down to 108. More importantly, I've lost a few centimeters around my belly. That's what I like :) So I'm happy. I hope to lose another inch before vacation.

Will I continue after this next month? I don't know. Maybe just less. It seems too much to do 6 days a week when I have 6 kids. Maybe 3-4 days a week? We'll see.

That's my update :)

Monday, March 18, 2013

Insanity 3

Still doing it even though I don't really want to be. It's hard. It's long. It gets kind of boring. Very repetitive. You would think for over $100 they would mix it up a bit more.

This past week was spring break and it was very hard trying to find time to workout without an audience. Seems like every day at least one of the kids was there watching and commenting. "Do it better, Mom", "Faster," "That's the wrong way," "Oh look at that girl go". UGH! One day I skipped completely. And then I skipped the weekend. I just didn't have it in me.

I plan on getting back into it tomorrow. It's been hard to find the right time to workout. Before the little ones wake up? During nap time? Before lunch? Separately or together?

I honestly can't wait to be done. I wish I could just stop...BUT I want to be thinner or more in fit. Whatever.

Hopefully when I update this blog next week, I'll be able to say I did all 6 days!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Insanity Update Week 2

We had a lot to do last Saturday, so we swapped days and worked out Sunday instead of Saturday. Other than that, we've stayed on course.

We've been trying to do our workout as soon as we wake up in the mornings. Usually 2 of the kids have gone to school and the rest are sleeping. It's a good time. Today I woke up with a bad headache. I took some medicine and hoped it would go away.

It didn't. Not quickly anyway.

I tried exercising, but every jump I did made my head hurt. It felt like someone was stabbing my head with an ice pick every time I landed.

We stopped the DVD and rested. Thankfully, the headache went away an hour or so later and when I put the two little kids down for their afternoon nap, we exercised. This was the pure cardio. Yikes! I was sweating and panting and praying for the 38 minutes to be over quickly.

I measured myself before starting Insanity and I measured myself on Sunday. I lost about 1/2" around my belly button area. That makes me really happy! It gives me the motivation to keep going. Hopefully I'll continue to see good results.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Insanity

Yup, we're doing it. LOL! First off I must disclose a few things. I'm in my upper 30s. I'm not overweight, not even a little. But after having six kids, I do have a couple inches of flab hanging out in my belly that needs to go away. In pictures I have "rolls" I don't like. I can't wear tight shirts and bathing suits - just blah. My husband is overweight and both of us were wanting to do something. We want to look good in pictures on our vacation this year. And we both want to be healthier, have more energy, and so on.

The next thing I have to disclose is that I don't plan on changing what I eat. I'm a picky eater and don't touch leafy looking food or fruits. I do drink lots of water. I eat steak and potatoes. Cheeseburgers. Pasta. Chicken. And lots of chocolate. I'm not a huge soda drinker and when I do drink it, it's orange soda. I don't drink coffee. Neither my husband nor I smoke or drink alcohol.

We started off with an Intro week Insanity DVD. I don't think I would have gotten through half of the first regular DVD without the intro week. It was less than 30 minutes, but a good workout. I was sore day 2 and 3, but then it evened out and got a little easier.

Monday we started the regular DVDs. First one was a Fit Test. We took our pictures and wrote down our pathetic numbers. The second day was a good workout, the third seemed to be more focused on arms and OMG the next day my arms were like jello. Holding my 11 month old was very difficult. Thursday was an easier day, no cardio, but the exercises were still good. Today, Friday, was pure cardio. WOW! Definitely insane!

I am tired. My body aches. I don't feel more energetic. I'm not sure if I've lost anything because I refuse to check until at least Sunday. But I plan to push on and hope that it does do something for me. I like the instructor, Shawn T. He doesn't yell at you. He is encouraging. At least so far.

I'm hoping to post updates and reviews here to keep me motivated and hold me accountable.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Follow Up

My son had his follow up last week. The doctor saw him for a whole two minutes - if that. We were concerned about the underneath of his penis. It still looks bunched up. And it points to the side a little. The doctor looked and said it was fine. He said it takes a long time to heal, that the swelling would take a while to go away, and that it would get better with time.

Didn't look swollen to me. Looks just wrong.

He wasn't concerned about what way it was pointing. He said it should be fine.

He said to come back in six months for the next follow up.

I'll trust him for now. But if it doesn't heal...he's going to hear from me.

I still feel horrible for the little guy. My husband believes we did the right thing. I'm still kicking myself. I never should have put him through that. I should have waited and let him decide when he's older. I can only hope it heals good and he'll forgive me.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Chordee Surgery

Against my better judgement, we went through with it.

I regret it now.

I hope I'm wrong.

I left it mainly up to my husband since he's a man. Also it seemed that the older my little guy got, the more noticeable the curve got. That and the thought of my son having to go through penis surgery as a teenager led me to go ahead with it.

The pediatric urologist had told us that he had an incomplete foreskin and he would use that foreskin in the surgery to fix the chordee. I really didn't want this to happen, but all the doctors I talked to agreed. A couple of them said our son could have the foreskin repaired later on. I guess I'll leave that up to him if he wants to.

As far as I know, his penis was a normal looking penis. Now it's not. That's why I regret it. Maybe it still has some healing to do? Maybe it'll look better in another month or two? I hope so.

We arrived for his surgery at 6:31am - 1 minute late and they had already called my cell phone looking for us to check in. Surgery wasn't until 9am. Picky people! We waited and waited and waited some more. They called us in to talk about insurance and then we waited some more.

Finally we were called into triage. They checked his vitals - height, weight, temp, heart rate, etc. Then back to the waiting room. Very frustrating with a baby who is breastfed and can't eat!! Then the nurse called us back and went over his health history. We were then taken to a new waiting room where we met with the anesthesiologist and then the doctor. After signing the papers, we waited in this secondary waiting room some more. At least they had these bubble tubes that our son liked to watch.

And then it was time. Time to hand my baby over to strangers knowing there was always the possibility something would go wrong and I'd never see him again. Hold him again. I told myself over and over this was a simple procedure. It would be okay. But my heart still pounded when they took off with him.

Back to the first waiting room where the next 75 minutes crept by. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Until the doctor came. "Everything went fine," he told us and I could breathe again.

He said the tissue - not just the skin - was bent so they put some stitches in. He also said there was a hypospadias but it was so close to the regular hole, there was no reason to fix it. He said they'd come get us in a few minutes and to see him in a month. Thankfully we didn't have to go back 2 days later because the doctor didn't need to put in a catheter.

A few minutes later, a nurse came and got us. We followed her back to the recovery room. She stopped at one of those anti-bacterial hand pumps and we "washed" our hands. Seeing my little guy all hooked up to wires broke my heart. He was still sleeping and had a tube in his mouth. It wasn't hooked up to anything. It had been while he was in surgery, but now it was just keeping his mouth open, protecting his airway.

He was hooked up to other things...heart monitor, oximeter, blood pressure cuff. His little blue and white blanket from home covered his body. He looked so hurt, so sad, even when sleeping. Like something had been taken away from him.

While he was sleeping, we got to see his "boo-boo". It was sooo red and swollen. Not too much blood, just a little on his diaper. He had a clear bandage wrapped around his penis. It reminded me of plastic wrap. They said to take it off in 2 days and if we couldn't get it off to bring him in so they could take it off. They stressed that we could cut if off. Seeing how snug it fit on him, there would be NO way I would take scissors to it.

He slept for a while. The nurses finally tried waking him up and he screamed and screamed. This was one time I didn't mind. I wanted to hear him cry, to know that everything was okay, that he wasn't brain damaged.

He nursed for a little while, they gave him some pain meds, and then he threw up and fell back to sleep. We had to wait for him to wake up more and stop throwing up to leave. It took a while. My husband went to get us some lunch. The nurse insisted on me waking him up and I hated that. I know they had to make sure he was okay before sending him home, but I wished we could have just rested. Soon he was awake and screaming.

We checked his diaper area again. Still awful looking. I immediately thought it looked better beforehand. We went home. He seemed to be doing okay. Clingy, but not overly cranky. He even got down to play but when he tried to walk sideways along the coffee table, he screamed. I guess separating his legs like that hurt. He didn't want to try again for a while.

We gave him the pain meds round the clock for a few days. He was also on antibiotics. The clear bandage fell off the next day. There were still blood spots on the diaper, but never a lot of bleeding. His penis looked horrible though. It was very swollen and then black and blue, purple, eventually yellow. It took at least a week for the head of his penis to be less red.

But it doesn't look normal. It's been almost a month and underneath is "bumpy". I noticed after a week or so that he seemed to have a pimple looking thing underneath. Now there are a few. I'm guess it's just a bunching of the skin, but I don't know. It looks odd. This is why I regret it. He might not be curved down anymore, but it points to the side - is that normal? I don't know. And he has this bunching underneath. I don't think anyone would have made fun of him beforehand. He looked like an uncircumcised boy without a LONG foreskin. It was shorter and there's not specific length, so would anyone have really noticed? But now!!! Now it's just weird. His follow up appointment is next week and I hope they say this is normal and will go away in a couple of months. I pray they don't say he'll need cosmetic surgery to fix it. UGH!!!

He also doesn't like me to hold him on my hip. Ya know with one leg on each side. He clamps his legs closed and cries. I don't know if it still hurts him or he just remembers that it hurt him at some point.

I hope that I'll change my mind and say this was the right decision. I hope all heals well and he's never teased and it never gives him problems. It was such a hard decision and I can only pray in the long run it was the right one.

I'll keep y'all updated.

On another note, I just want to say that the hospital was great. Even though we waited in the waiting rooms for a long time, they were nice, child friendly waiting rooms. Toys, ride on cars and bikes, movies, books, computers, plugs for phones, etc. There was a separate waiting room for people to eat food - so they kids who weren't allowed to eat wouldn't have to watch other people eating and be jealous. The nurses were nice. They called afterwards to make sure he was doing okay. So that part was a good experience.