The gray area of medicine has come in many shades for Rilynn's hips. Plans change constantly and we are learning not to expect anything. The plan for today was to check in at 9, for a 9:30 surgery start. We checked in at 9 and said good-bye to our loopy drugged out girl at noon. The previous case was more complicated than expected. We were very understanding because we've been those parents. Keeping Rilynnn distracted, since she hadn't eaten since our night of fun at 6 the night before, was our priority. She watched a lot of Frozen! We were planning on both hips femoral and pelvic osteotomies. At 1 we got word that the incision had been made. At 1:45, Rilynn was "doing fine". 3, still fine. Then at 4 we heard they were still on the right side. We knew that probably meant things weren't going as planned. At 4:30, we learned he was not attempting the left side. At 5:30, our doctor, who is amazingly knowledgable and experienced in deformed hips, came out to give us the low down of what went down in the OR. We started with the right side because that's the side that was previously operated on and he knew the scar tissue would be challenging. Once in there, he did a femoral osteotomy, breaking her femor, shortening it an inch (which he seemed to think was a lot), and putting in a plate. Then, he tried to think of how he could do a pelvic osteotomy to build more of a cup shape, but since her "socket" is shaped like a plate instead of a cup, he couldn't do anything. So, he positioned the femoral head in the plate, tightened her ligaments around it, and put in the purple cast. She will have 3D imaging to verify the position later this week. Then, she will be in the cast for 8 weeks. At that time we will do this again on the left side. It will be easier to get to since that side does not have scar tissue, but he anticipates it will look the same. We are hoping that with her femoral head in the right place, her socket will form into a cup and that's that. The first 6-12 months is the most crucial in growth. After that, we can see if she needs the pelvic osteotomy done. Her socket will have grown enough that, hopefully, there is something to work with if needed to create a socket.
We are disappointed that this will be a long recovery and that she's not out of the dark yet, but we are so grateful that we found a surgeon as experienced as he is. He has done HUNDREDS of the surgery he doesn't normally do and has been working on hips for over 35 years. AND you can actually have a conversation with him and understand what he's saying.
We are happy about the purple cast. It's been something we've asked for 4 times and the other hospital was always out of purple. Maybe it will have magical powers to help that socket grow properly.
1 free leg!
Watching a movie
Can't wait for the day we can squeeze her thighs again and have her run into our arms!!
