A month short of her first birthday, Juni's parents discovered she had a displaced hip. It happened this way: The sisters were rasslin' and when that ended in loud noises and tears, Joe and Sarah thought perhaps Juni had injured a foot. Off to the Emergency Room for the Right Now X-ray. Good news: Nothing broken. They're on their way out of the hospital, relieved, when the X-ray tech comes up behind them and invites them back in. "I'm seeing something on the X-ray," he said. And there it was. Sarah, whose sister had CHD early on, had noticed the manifestations of this in Juni's crawling, but her concerns and observations had been discounted by the doctor.
The course of action was to relocate the ball of the femur in the socket. And then the spica cast, all under anesthesia. Wikipedia tells us a spica cast is one where there is a smaller cast branching from a larger one; hence, a wrist cast that includes a branch for the thumb would be a spica. There are subspecies of this critter, and what Juni ended up with was a one-and-a-half hip spica. One branch goes to her ankle, and on the other side it stops above the knee.
So that's the medical part. Oh, and three months is the time part, with a remove-and-replace midterm because these li'l ones just grow so fast! The parenting part: Juni was just pulling herself up to walk and this will frustrate her progress! So dad and I are busy designing machines for Juni. Joe came up with a great little table which allows her to sit comfortably--note the legs are splayed out--and do stuff with one year old toys on a tray with a lip so they're less likely to be launched (good in theory). As for our mobility aids? Well we tried, and cleverly at that, but she surprised us all: She developed her own point A to point B techniques, shown here
It's no summer festival for Juni, and it's all new for her sister Lily who is used to a playmate who doesn't tote literal pounds of plaster of paris. And Juni has discovered how, if she gets on her back, she can use sophisticated counterbalancing techniques to get her dorsal side up.
What it is from here: A window on the personality of this wonder-child who is teaching us about perseverance and spirit and acceptance.
Grandma and Grampa are proud of all four in this family.
About five weeks to go at this writing.
2 comments:
We just found out that our little girl has the same CHD. You said that you built a chair and table top for her. Do you have any pictures and/or plans?
Hi Melissa (this is Nonno - Edie's grandpa for those who don't know me, and Melissa's father-in-law).
You apparently had the same idea - when I read about how they built a chair, I immediately thought: "Perfect 'First Project' for my new workshop!"
Let me know if you get pictures. Adam and I would have fun building them.
God Bless!
Post a Comment