Sunday, November 08, 2020

Marissa's Special Elbow

I hope I'm not alone in wondering when to seek medical attention for my kids. When is it appropriate to tell them to "buck up" and when should you seek an expert's advice? I have the privilege of having two kids for whom every ache and pain is deemed worthy a trip to the emergency room...at least in their minds. I cured one of my kids of that by finally taking her. After six hours of sitting around, she was given two ibuprofen and told to go home, they couldn't find anything wrong with her. 

About six weeks into the school year, Marissa started complaining about her elbow hurting. She was careful about bumping into anything, as any touch caused her pain. Eventually we ended up at Tria's urgent care for it, where she was fitted with a partial splint to protect it and keep it somewhat stationary. 

There, the doctor took a look at her record and her many trips to Tria for this same elbow, and said, "Hmmm....we've seen you a lot for this, but we've never taken an MRI. Let's do that." 

The MRI indicated something surprising — Marissa has an extra muscle in her elbow! Only about 4% of people who have elbow surgery have this, and the percentage of people who have elbow surgery is quite small, so let's just say it's pretty rare. 

They did more testing and an ultrasound which showed that as she moves her arm the muscle impinges on her ulnar nerve. A-ha! The source of her pain. Thankfully they could do an outpatient procedure to remove the tissue that was compressing the nerve.  

She was cleared for surgery and we were able to get it scheduled in a week. Dr. Bohn (pronounced "bone," which I thought was ironic considering she's an orthopedic surgeon), was highly recommended and had an opening on Thursday, November 5th. 

Marissa barely slept the night before surgery. She was anxious about the coming day, as anyone would be, especially a 15-year-old. She and I stayed up together from 2 a.m. to 4:30, entertaining each other with stories and laughing. Pretty soon her mind was relaxed enough that she could get a couple of hours of sleep before we had to go to the surgery center. 

Marissa was amazing through all the pre-op. She got an IV with no issues, chatted with the nurses and asked a lot of questions. They gave her a nerve block for her arm, which deadened all feeling in her arm and made it feel like it weighed 100 pounds. She said her arm felt like it belonged to a stranger.

Finally Dr. Bohn came in to greet her before surgery. She said, "Let me check to see how this arm is doing," she picked up Marissa's arm and let it go. It dropped like a rock onto the pillow below. Dr. Bohn laughed and said, "That cracks me up every time." 


Marissa did great and the surgery went well. Dr. Bohn had to transpose Marissa's nerve to another area of her elbow joint, so it will take some extra time to heal. It took Marissa a while to wake up, but eventually she did and we headed home for recovery to begin.

The day after surgery all of the nerve block had worn off and Marissa was in a lot of pain. The meds she had been prescribed made her sleep and she slept most of the day, but whenever she was awake she was in a lot of pain, so we got a different medication that would help more. 

It's been a few days now, and every day is better than the day before. Hopefully no more trips to urgent care for elbow pain for her. 

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