Em's leg surgery

A couple of people have e-mailed me recently about Emily's leg surgery so I thought I'd blog it.


Back at the beginning of the blog I wrote about an embolism that she had in her leg after her first surgery. The clot had to be surgically removed and as she was so tiny quite a bit of damage was done to her femoral artery. The upshot of it was that the leg didn't grow for a while and by the time she began to walk at around 17 months her right leg was obviously shorter and thinner than the left. She was having physio as she was generally a little delayed in her development and it was clear that she had a weakness in her leg that was hindering her mobility. After a referral to orthopaedics we had a 6 monthly checks and the growth in that leg continued to fall short for a while. Eventually it stablised and CT scans showed it to be around 3.5 cm shorter. She wore a raised shoe throughout her childhood and thankfully this minimised the development of scoliosis although she was plagued by hip and leg pain.



Our lovely surgeon suggested a procedure called epiphysiodesis; basically arresting the growth in the 'good' leg to allow the shorter leg to catch up. He kept an eye on her growth via the CT scans and she had bone age x-rays as the timing of the surgery is very important. She had the initial procedure done around her 12th birthday. The surgery involves placing pins (they look like mahoosive Frankenstien bolts on the x-ray) around the growth plates; two crossing the plate above the knee in the femur, two crossing the plate under the knee and a little one at the top of the little leg bone (I have no idea about the proper name of it). Around two years later she was deemed to have equal length legs and the pins were removed. Placing the pins was more painful and intrusive than removing them and recover was slower. She spent some time on crutches, about 3 weeks for the placement and also had physio but she quickly regained the range of movement in her knee although the physio commented that both her legs had global weakness. She has lost a little of her adult height through the procedure but is heading towards 5ft 5 so it is not a noticeable loss.

After many years of having to choose her footwear carefully to cope with the raise she can now wear shoes like those chosen by many teenagers. Even if her dad disapproves!

The Friday Photo

The Friday photo is usually one of Emily's compositions but this week it's one of mine from my charabanc trip to London last weekend. I'm quite pleased with it!

A belated Happy Mother's Day and Coming Home Part 2

Happy Mother's Day for yesterday. Hope everyone had a lovely time and that you were well looked after by your children. Thoughts to those who no longer have their mums or their children with them.

The Coming Home Part 2 reminded me of a past Mother's Day. I've been in London over the weekend - quite a change from the norm for me as I don't get away often - on my return yesterday the house was filled with a most fabulous scent. It was the smell of the blue hyacinth sitting on my kitchen windowsill.

The smell brings back memories of a happy Mother's Day in 1994. This was the first Mothering Sunday after having Emily - she had been in hospital for many weeks and had just escaped from PICU on to the general cardiac ward. Her dad had brought down the boys to see us and they had presented me with a cut blue hyacinth for Mother's Day. I'm sure it was probably purchased from the service station on the M6 but it is the thought that counts. The flower lived for an age on the windowsill of my tiny room in the parent's accommodation block, filling the room with its scent and greeting me when I walked in of an evening. The smell reminds me of that time and they are happy memories because she was getting better and I knew by then that I would be bringing her home.

Spring. At last!

Evidence of Spring in the Friday photos. All these have been taken in our garden this week.

I love coming home.....

The cardiac catheter went ahead as planned on Tuesday and we're now back home. Hurray!

The upshot of the test showed that the pressures in Emily's right ventricle we're way too high because of the narrowed pulmonary artery. The possibility of this had been discussed previously so the consultant went ahead and did a balloon dilation of the artery to stretch the narrowing and hopefully relieve some of the pressure. He was succesful and we will have to go back on a few months to check that the artery has remained stretched. Fingers crossed. In the meantime it will mean her heart is working less hard and she'll maybe have a bit more energy. More good news is that her coronary artery tunnel has excellent flow. Emily's left coronary is made up of pulmonary tissue and passes through her pulmonary artery which makes the balloon dilation more complex, as it wouldn't be good to cause it any injury.

We had our own room on the ward which was fab as it was busy and very noisy with lots of babies and toddlers making themselves heard. Not good when mixed with a fragile and slightly anxious teenager. As usual the staff were lovely and were very careful to maintain a degree of privacy for Emily. We also had a chat about making the transition to adult services which I think we're both feeling a little happier about now.

Best be off - she wants egg on toast!

New date & the late Friday photo

New date is Tuesday 17th March. Third time lucky eh?



One from the garden. Still searching for Spring here.

Being thankful.

I came online today with the intention of having a bit of a moan. We're still waiting for Emily's new cath date - that was the crux of it. But before I logged in here I went to check on a couple of blogs belonging to friends. The bottom line is that I'm not going to winge any longer. I have nothing to winge about, infact I have everything to be thankful for. Think on.

And on that note here are this Friday's photos....

These were taken at the Trentham estate this week; the first is the view from the monument and the other two the Wheel currently residing by the lakeside.

Spring? Where?

Well I thought that Spring had arrived at the beginning of the week but last night we had more snow!

We did go for a bracing walk yesterday around the Trentham Estate (photo tomorrow). It was bright but cold and not a little muddy underfoot. The Esate is the focus of much disgruntlement locally as the owners wish to charge for the Woodland Walks, which have in the past been free to access. I'm not completely against charging but personally think £5 for an adult (£7 in the summer) is a bit steep. There are plenty of free walks slightly further afield and I think that many will take their hiking boots elsewhere.