Tuesday, July 19, 2005

No Surgery for Maribeth!


Maribeth
Originally uploaded by Allan & Cheryl.

That's the postive side! The general surgeon we saw today said that the risks of surgery to remove her "tail" (he had a medical term which I forget!) outweigh the benefits!

About the pediatricians' worry that she would fall and fracture it - he said in his 25+ years of experience he has seen that only happen once. It was an older child and basically the tailbone fractured but didn't heal up - so they went in and removed that bit. No spinal issues.

He said while to many family doctors and pediatricians it looks scary and seems like it should be operated on, the research shows that it's very unlikely to cause any problems (now that we know there is no spinal invovlement).

I'm a tad annoyed because with summer construction I spent almost 4 hours on the road in the heat today, plus over an hour in the waiting room and we really shouldn't have been there at all!

It was a medical miscommunication between the neurosurgeon and the pediatrician. The neaurosurgeon said that, "Since there was no spinal cord involvement, she has no need of a neurosurgeon." He did not specifically state that she didn't need ANY surgeon so the pediatrician took this to mean that she needed a GENERAL surgeon, not a neurosurgeon. Ugh. But at least I know it's unlikely to cause problems.

Oh and the "cyst" they were worried about was only her strawberry hemangioma - yet ANOTHER miscommunication between Dr's and hospitals!

No comments: