Big change of plans

Today was a very LONG day. I had a job interview that seemed to go really well. Then we had Kiya's 2 yr check up in which we were planning for a routine visit and 3 vaccinations.

Yeah things didn't go as planned. Let's start with the good news.

Kiya is hitting all developmental milestones and as expected a little behind in gross motor. She is nearly perfect in all ways. She weighed in at 29.5 lbs with her cast on so about 26.5 lbs. She is 35 inches tall. She is in the 83rd percentile for height.

As we were discussing just how resilient Kiya is and such a trooper, I mentioned that her cast was starting to stink. I noticed the smell just a couple of days ago. Well, Kiya was sitting on my lap and I was rubbing her neck and looked down her cast.

I look down her cast a lot. I rub a baby wipe where I can to get whatever grime I can off. We are always checking for sores etc.  Well, we majorly missed this one. Kiya has a pussy infected quarter size keloid right smack dab in the middle of her back. We found the smell.

I made a panicky phone call to Shriners hospital to talk with our nurse. She said get Kiya out of that cast ASAP as in now. So we started untaping, unpadding and scrambling trying to figure out what we were going to do. We were finally able to convince the ortho department to cut off her cast with the saw. Yeah not fun. Really not fun. Lots of screaming but really she did great.

We then peel off her cast shirt and wow. Seriously GROSS. Poor kid. The plus side is keloids don't hurt, it is a scar that spreads beyond the original injury and is essence becomes a separate growth.

So the plan for now is to put Kiya on antibiotics for 10 days to rid her of infection and allow time for the skin to heal. Then we have no idea. I sent pictures of the keloid to our nurse at Shriners and she is going to consult with our doctor.  It appears we will have two options. Remove the keloid, allow that to heal and cast again with extra precautions or leave the keloid, cast and use extra precautions. We are in a holding pattern for now.

Kiya is cast free for at least the next 3 weeks which means we get baths, squishy hugs and some extra worrying. I am trying not to think about all of this time out of cast. We took her out 2 weeks early.

I have such mixed feeling about this whole thing. I know we had no choice and I know everything happens for a reason. So I am going to try and enjoy this bonus time with Kiya cast free. I am loving the hugs and seeing her walking cast free and I will try not to worry too much about her curvy back.