T minus 9

Boo had her pre-op hospital visit today.  Whilst the nurses tried to impress her with a teddy bear and a pretty bed cover, Boo got right down to it and found the power outlets.

We talked buggy's, car seats, nappies, bean bags and general care.  We talked surgery, anaesthetic and casting. JF and I are still 'discussing' who will stay with her for the few days she is at the hospital - it may be a paper/scissors/rock thing after the nurse told us she'd need waking every two hours for a position change.  Boo, I love you , but I do love my sleep too.

Everything (except Boo's hip), seems to be falling into place so it's now just a waiting game.  With just over a week to go, Boo is getting lots of baths and lots of time to run, jump, hop, skip and do her daggy little 'excited' dance. 

I have no doubt that Boo will find a way to move once the cast is on, but for the short time she can't it is going to be lovely.

• We'll be able to take a shower, come back and she'll be in the same spot we left her in
• No stealing her brothers toast in the mornings
• No finding the contents of my handbag scattered throughout the house
• And the best til last - solitary toilet visits (whilst J is at Kindy anyway!)

The Odds

People keep telling us we are lucky. Lucky that we've caught Boo's hip early, lucky that it's not both hips, lucky that we've got great family and friends to support us. I'm not sure that luck is the right word. I'm certainly grateful for all of these things, but it’s not really about luck. To me, luck is finding a parking spot on a Saturday morning, right outside the shop you want to go in. Luck is going into that shop and finding the exact thing you were looking for and having time to go and grab a coffee.


DDH used to be called Congenital Dysplasia of the Hips, but someone clever has since found that some hips are normal at birth and gradually become dysplastic.

According to my research via my dear friend Google, about one in 100 hips present with some dysplasia at birth decreasing to approx one in 1000 hips by six weeks. It can happen to any baby but is predominantly associated with:

• females
• the left hip
• first born children
• babies born breech (or in breech position in the last trimester of pregnancy)
• babies with other orthopaedic problems (club foot etc.)
• a positive family history

Boo hits three out of six of those risk factors, and because of her age her only option for treatment is surgery and a cast.

 

If Lotto had those odds I'd buy a ticket every week - now winning that would be lucky!

This is Boo

I've never been very good with rollercoasters.  My best known survival tactic is holding on tight with my eyes closed.  I don't think that will work this time.  (Come to think of it, it didn't work last time either, when me and my Morris Minor ended up in the middle of a traffic island ...)

 

This is Boo.  Boo has a dislocated hip - or more correctly Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH).

 

A short history of Boo's diagnosis:

• We noticed she had a wiggle in her walk
• Kindy mentioned it, so did Plunket
• Our GP referred her to an orthopaedic specialist 'just in case'.
• Our appointment was at 4pm last Thursday. By 6pm Boo had been given an examination, an xray, a diagnosis and a treatment plan.

Boo needs surgery to correct her hip, followed by 3 months in a hip spica cast. After the diagnosis, I told Mr T that he was actually just meant to send us home and tell me to stop being an over protective mother.  He told me I was meant to be crying about now.  I think I might be a tiny little bit in love with Mr T.

 

We are waiting for confirmation of her surgery date and in the meantime trying to sort out the practicalities of one of us being off work for three months to care for her.

The actual practicalities of caring for her in a hip spica cast, car seats, strollers and highchairs, will have to wait until next week when the rollercoaster slows down.