The 8 Week Check-In Appointment

After 8 weeks in the Diaper Splint we headed back up to the city to find out what was in store for Mackenzie.  We were trying to be optimistic, yet didn't want to get our hopes up too high and figured she'd likely have to spend a bit more time in the brace.  We hoped maybe it wouldn't be a full 24 hours a day and we could start weaning her off of it.

Again, our appointment started with them taking a new x-ray of her hips.  We then met with the OT who checked her out and looked at the brace and decided she had grown so much that they would definitely need to make her a new one if she needed it still.

Again we first saw a resident doctor, a different one this time, who checked Mackenzie over rotating her hips checking length of her legs, etc.  He seemed quite optimistic, said he didn't feel much.  We requested that we would like to see her more recent x-ray which is said was no problem and he went to get the Doctor for us.  When the Doctor came in he again, also examined Mackenzie.  He has looked at the x-rays as well.  This is when we got the news that we weren't expecting at all.

The brace had done nothing to help her hip.  Nothing at all in 8 weeks.  He started to explain that he would need to do a procedure called a closed reduction where they put the patient to sleep and under live x-ray with a dye injected in her hip to visualize it better they would attempt to manipulate the hip into the proper placement.  When he said that she would need to be in a Spica Cast after the procedure for 12 weeks my tears started flowing and I had a hard time focusing on anything else he was saying.  He did tell us that if the closed reduction was not successful they would leave her for the time being and they would do a surgical open reduction after she was over a year old.  They would try to get her in as soon as possible for the closed reduction, within three weeks, and told us that she did not need to wear the brace any longer since it wasn't helping at all anyway.

A Nurse Practitioner came in to help us fill out the paperwork that was needed for the procedure, explained things a little more for us, told us someone would call us with a date for the procedure and sent us on our way.