Right now I am pretty much wracked with guilt, and a little tired of people who tell me I shouldn't feel guilty. You see, my oldest son Stephen is going to have back surgery on February 4th and I feel, not unjustifiably, that it is my fault.
One of the side effects (if you'll forgive me a medical term) of being an ICU/ER nurse is that you tend to minimize complaints from your own family. I've been repeatedly guilty of listening to my husband and children's health woes with the attitude of "yeah right, call me when you're dying". When Stephen was in 7th grade he started to complain of back pain, usually when I wanted him to do some type of work, (so maybe I have a BIT of an excuse). The complaints went on for a couple of years and at this point a GOOD mother would have thought "hmmmm, maybe I should take this kid to the doctor" but I just kept not paying attention and putting him off. Finally, right before we came back to Texas he was having a physical for a boy scout campout and I told him to tell the doctor about his back complaints. The doctor called me and said he wanted to x-ray Stephen's back. That he suspected something called a spondylolysis. Of course at that point I said "absolutely, do the x-ray" and sure enough the x-ray showed this condition, it's an intrarticulas pars fracture of the 5th lumbar vertebrae. We immediately went to see an orthopedic specialist in Singapore who had a very good reputation and he told me that these types of fractures can be present for years and aren't always due to trauma. In fact some children are born with them. He also said that as long as Stephen's pain wasn't constant it could be treated w/ exercise and nothing else was necessary. The only exception was if the pain increased or was persistent, in which case it could be treated w/ surgery but that was best avoided. Well, Stephen went on the boy scout camp-out and his back seemed to be pretty stable BUT...he did complain of pain intermittently.
About a year after we returned to the States Stephen's pain seemed to persist to the point that just a little yard work or exercise caused him to have pain. He's a pretty stoic kid so he didn't make a big deal of the pain, but it was definitely stopping him from helping out in the yard and he'd often go to bed early saying his back was hurting. So...I decided to have it checked out by a doctor here in Houston. The doctor we went to see had outstanding credentials and he was pretty much appalled that Stephen had been having pain for a couple of years that hadn't been treated. I was feeling pretty appalled at myself at this point too! He put Stephen into a back brace in June (the week before school let out) and told him he'd wear it for 3 months. At the beginning of September the brace came off and within a couple of days Stephen's pain was back (no pun intended). We repeated the CT scan and it showed that their had been absolutely no healing of the fracture...so now my 18 year old son has to have a spinal fusion on February 4th.
I've been doing a lot of research about intrarticulas pars fracture and what I've discovered is that the closer the time of immobilization (the brace) occurs to the actual time of injury the better the chance for recovery. In other words, if I had taken his complaints a bit more seriously when he first made them there's a good chance he wouldn't be getting ready to have surgery now! Stephen, being the absolutely incredible kid he is, doesn't blame me at all. In fact he said "you know mom, I wouldn't have believed me either!" but that really doesn't negate the fact that I didn't take the care of my kid that I should have.
I'm left with the feeling of regret. Knowing that you failed to do the right thing is so painful.
No comments:
Post a Comment