WE HAVE NORMAL HIPS!!!!

I figured that required shouting!

I can't believe it took me so long to get this on the blog.  More important things I suppose, like running, jumping and spending as much time outside as possible, took priority.

Playing with her favorite new toy - the water table!

We had an appointment with our surgeon on April 23rd (I am going to back-date this post for record keeping purposes).  I was a little bit nervous going in because we had always been told that we need to see continued improvement each time.  If her hips stop improving then we would be looking at an Osteotomy when she was 3 or 4, which is a surgery to cut and change the shape of the bone that makes up the hip joint.

As per usually Mackenzie freaked out when we went into the x-ray room.  They usually only allow one parent in but we asked if we could both go since we knew she would not be happy.  It took both of us holding her down to get the picture.  I hate that part so much.

Then, back to the waiting room until we get called in to see the doctor.

We got the absolute best news we could have gotten.  Her hips are in the normal range!  The doctor said as far as she is concerned her hips are both normal (the left was the one affected).  She should have no future issues except for a slight increased risk of early arthritis but that is a long ways down the road.  We also never have to go back!  Woohoo!

Needless to say we are over the moon.  From my readings and participation on the Facebook and Yahoo groups DDH forums it is not very common that a child would be done treatment after "just" a reduction, usually they go on to need surgery.

Of course now I have millions of questions like: can the hip regress, what do we do if we notice weird things like limping, etc.  But I guess we will cross those bridges when we get there.

 We are excited for a "normal" summer with splash parks, the beach, bouncy castles, cute summer clothes (I may have gone a bit overboard after our endless onesies last summer) and just enjoying life.

Thanks so much to everyone for all of your continued support.  I will try to "check in" on here every so often, but as with lately, I likely wont post very frequently.

It's Frustrating

It's frustrating that the medical professionals who are making decisions about what is "best" for our children probably have never been around a child for more than 1/2 hour here and a few minutes there that are in things like: a spica cast, a brace, a harness, etc.


Do they know that while foam may seem cheap and just as effect, it doesn't breath at all and the little ones get so incredibly sweaty underneath?

Do they know that once the babies turn to toddlers and they try to sit, crawl, stand and even walk in a foam brace held by velcro it doesn't hold it's integrity and shape very well at all?

Do they know the struggles that come with caring for a child in a spica cast 24/7?

Do they know the emotional toll seeing your baby go through hip dysplasia takes?



Maybe if they did they would wait a little longer to answer your questions.

Maybe if they did they would take some time to talk to you about what might work best for your individual child.

Maybe if they did they would have a little more compassion.



In somewhat good news, we have finally heard back from the Orthotic clinic that they have a few different brace's in for Mackenzie to try out.  We go on Wednesday.  Two weeks after that we go back up to Edmonton for a follow-up appointment.  Is it even worth it at this point?  With the luck we have always had at those appointments she probably will need to wear the brace for awhile longer, so I suppose it is.

What About Work?

This question came up on the DDH Facebook group I am a part of so I thought it might be worth while to do a quick post about what we are doing.

We are so blessed that I am still on maternity leave (until August 29th) and because Brice is also a teacher he only had three more days left of work before summer break when Mackenzie got her first cast.  Therefore we were both able to be home with her for two whole months during the cast time.  We will both be back at work though at the beginning of the new school year.  When we found out she would be getting the cast, we immediately started planning and trying to figure out what we would do when the time came to go back to work.

A few of our options were:

• take an unpaid leave from work so one of us could stay home with her until the cast came off
• have Brice's mom come out and stay with us for the few weeks in September that Mackenzie will still have the cast (she is a retired school teacher); or,
• send her to the dayhome that we had lined up already

It took Mackenzie probably about a week and a half to two weeks to get used to being in the cast.  At 9 months old she adapted incredibly well.  I doubt she even remembers what it is like to not be restricted by the cast.  After that week and a half to two weeks she got back to sleeping well and being back to her regular happy self.  If you are a parent who is not able to take an extended leave from work to care for your child in a spica I would suggest trying to take at least two weeks when they first get the cast.  

Especially now that Mackenzie only has one leg casted, but even before, we were so impressed with how well she was doing.  Diaper changes were not nearly the nightmare we expected.  She crawls around and plays independently.  She is honestly just her regular happy self.  This made our decision to both go back to work much easier.  

The original plan was to have Mackenzie's Grandma come and stay with us for the 2-3 weeks she would still be in the cast.  After that she would go to the dayhome.  However, with the ease of caring for her in the cast, we decided to leave the decision up to her day home provider about whether she would like her to start there from the get go.  She seemed to be quite willing to take her despite the cast.  We went and visited her the other day so that she could see what the cast looked like and how Mackenzie adapted with it.  She had done a bunch of research online as well, and like us was impressed with how well Mackenzie was doing.  She told us she would be happy to take her.  In fact, she seems more concerned with dealing with Mackenzie's dairy allergy than the cast.

So, rather than have Mackenzie have to make two transitions, first with Grandma and then to the day home, we decided to go straight to the day home.  We are hoping for the best come September!

Ivy Rose Spica Chair

The day we got home from the hospital with Mackenzie in the spica cast we went straight to work searching online to find out how to make her as comfortable as possible.  One of the things that kept coming up again and again were Ivy Rose Spica Chairs.

Stephanie makes absolutely beautiful chairs custom built to each individual kid's cast.  Every spica cast is different and may even vary from one cast to the next in the same child due to getting the hips in the most stable position for that individual.  After some conversation back and forth via email we decided on a basic "jelly-bean" chair.  While there is the option to have your chair personalized with Stephanie's beautiful paintings we were in a hurry to get the chair as soon as possible and honestly didn't have the brain power at that point to decide on a design.

We were told that there were two other chairs that she had on order to make on Monday but that our chair would be built and shipped on Wednesday.  We received it that Friday so we only went 1 week in total without having it.  And very much appreciated the rush to get it to us.

We decided on purple for the chair.  It has a painted table top and on the reverse side is chalkboard which would be lots of fun for a child a little older.  It was personalized with Mackenzie's name on the back of the chair and a nice message on the chalkboard.

The seat is cut out to accommodate a child in a spica cast so that they are able to sit upright.  There is a "seat belt" type strap to hold the child in place.

Mackenzie uses the chair for all of her meals if we are at home.  When she has finger foods I put down a plastic placemat on top of the table to protect it a bit.  She also plays in there regularly as her only other option is to be laying on the floor on her stomach.  We try to keep her off her back when she is awake because she sleeps on her back.

Her new favourite game is to take the toys from the chair and drop them over the side.  Usually she starts with the table full of toys and in about 10 minutes it is empty!

This chair has been amazing.  I don't know what we would do without it.  Thank you Stephanie for building these chairs for our Hip Kids.

I only wish we had a more portable one so we could take it with us wherever we go.

My hope is that we will be able to pass this chair on to someone else who can use it when Mackenzie is finished with it.  It was quite expensive to have it shipped up to Canada and hope that it can be used and loved by someone else after we are finished.

The Beginning of the Adventure

It all started at Mackenzie's 6 month check up on March 26th with our family doctor.  Everything was going great until we got to the end of the appointment when the doctor noticed a "click" in Mackenzie's left hip.  Her hips had been checked, as is routine, when she was born as well as at her 6 week and 3 month appointments and nothing out of the ordinary was noticed.  Our doctor wanted to send us for an x-ray to have it checked out to see what was going on.

We went first thing in the morning the very next day to the Diagnostic Imaging Centre as x-rays were done on a first come first serve basis.  Then we just had to wait a few days for the results to be sent to our doctor.  We got a phone call from our doctor a couple days later telling us that they did indeed notice an abnormality on the x-ray and they were sending us to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon in the city.  We had a choice of either Edmonton or Calgary since we live in between the two cities.  It didn't matter to us we just wanted to get in as quickly as we could.  We had an appointment for the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton for April 10th, so fortunately did not have to wait too long to see someone.

While we waited we did a bunch of research online, as well as talked with a colleague of ours whose daughter also had hip dysplasia as a baby.  We had no idea what the issue really was or how severe it might be so we didn't know at all what to expect.   I had been regularly taking Mackenzie to see a chiropractor and she was able to access the x-rays and took some time to go over them with me and explain what they meant.  She said things were not good and Mackenzie's left hip did not have the ball of her femur that should sit in her hip socket developed.  Also that the angle of the left hip was not correct as you can see in the images below compared to the right.  She told us to be prepared for her to be put in a brace or even potentially a cast when we went to see the specialist.

When we saw the specialist in Edmonton they took another x-ray.  First a resident doctor came into the room and examined Mackenzie he said that he didn't seem to feel any problems and it didn't seem bad.  That there maybe was a little bit of a click and that the specialist would have a look at it.  

When the Doctor came in he said "That's not a normal hip, it's not dislocating, but it's not a normal hip".  That was about as much of an explanation we got from him.  He hummed and hawed a bit between whether she should have a Pavlik Harness or a brace and decided on the brace since she was on the old-ish side for the Pavlik.  We were sent to the Rehab clinic to see an Occupational Therapist and told she needed to wear the brace 24/7 except for diaper changes and baths for 8 weeks and then we would reassess.