Cast Check-in Appointment

Today we went back up to the Stollery for Mackenzie to have her follow up appointment.  We were supposed to go back after 3 weeks in the cast, but we are heading out to visiting her Grandma and Grandpa in Victoria so they said to come back a bit early.

We were dreading some news along the lines of her hip being out and the past 11 days being pointless in the cast.  Or that she was going to need to spend 6 months in the cast.  Or that she would still need surgery.  Or something else terrible since it seems like we only get bad news when we go there.

Thankfully the appointment was quite uneventful.  Like all our appointments with the orthopedic surgeon it began with a wait in the jam packed waiting room.  Then we had an x-ray.  Then back to the waiting room to wait some more before finally going back into a room to wait some more for the doctor to come in.  Mackenzie was hamming it up and entertaining the entire waiting room.  I don't know what it is about her, but she just sucks in people's attention and holds it.  Must be her cuteness!

Got a sticker from the x-ray tech.  Which I crinkled and then tried to eat and then cried when mom took it away :)

In the examination room we saw yet another resident doctor.  The third one.  Every time a different resident.  He asked us a few questions.  All things that they should know from Mackenzie's chart like when her reduction was, when she would be getting the cast off, etc.  Then he left to go get the surgeon.   I'm all for teaching and learning, but it gets to be quite frustrating.

The surgeon came in and told us that everything looked good on Mackenzie's x-ray.  Her hip is in place where it is supposed to be.  We then pulled out our extremely long list of questions and corralled him into answering them.  We got a lot of good news.  She will be in the cast for 12 weeks, but only 12 weeks.  After the 12 weeks she will go into a brace and how long she will need to wear it will depend on how well she continues to develop.  He said her case is about middle of the road of what he has seen.  Not the most severe by any stretch, but also worse than some that he sees.  He hesitated to give us the numbers for her acetabular index.  It seemed mostly to be due to the in accuracy of x-ray in infants and also that if she is at a slight angle when the x-ray is taken (and she apparently was this time) that can skew the numbers.  He mentioned the number 33, but I don't know if that was what she is at or he was just throwing it out there as an example.  I also saw the number 42 on one of her earlier x-rays they showed us.

He told us that if this closed reduction and the brace following it doesn't completely fix her hip we will just play the wait and see game until she is about 4 years old and if she needed surgery they would not do it until that point.

We go back in about 4 more weeks and she will get her cast changed.  The doctor said depending on the stability of her hip he may be able to put on a shorter cast that would not go up so high on her chest and may also only come to her knee instead of her ankles.  But they will have to check things when they get her back in the OR.  The nurse practitioner who fills out the paperwork also told us she would ask for a waterproof cast for Mackenzie for the cast change, so that's exciting!