Kaitlyn's Second Surgery

Two weeks ago we set up Kaitlyn's surgery to have the pins in her right hip removed tomorrow. A week ago I got a call from Armonde, Dr Brock's nurse, saying someone canceled for the next day's surgery and wanted to know if we could come in. I jumped at the chance. She said going on Feb 25th instead of March 4th would make Kaitlyn first on the surgery list rather then second. I want her first if I can help it which is why I took her up on the offer.

The good news and the bad news is...

• The surgery is behind us.


• Dr Brock said it went well.


• She scars "nicely" meaning she isn't getting horribly bad scars from the procedures.


• Kaitlyn now has a cast that hits her above both knees.

However...

• The pins moved allowing the bone graft to shift up which means she now has a flat area for the joint to sit on rather then a nice cupped area. I know I'm saying that wrong, but hopefully you get the idea that it isn't ideal.


• She could possibly need the same surgery again when she is four or five years old because of the graft moving.


• She will have to wear a brace "for a long time" as Dr Brock put it; again because of the moved graft.

Please pray Kaitlyn's tendons will tighten nicely around her new formed hip causing it to stay perfectly in place which will prevent another round of surgeries. As of right now she is only guaranteed one more surgery and that will be to removed the plate and four screws from her femur. Her next surgery will be six months to one year from her first surgery (Jan 19th).

Although this isn't a great picture, you can see her new spica cast here.

The light purple is Duck Tape. The cast is so dark I told mom we should take her to Walmart and see how well the cast matches the dark blue tape. I ended up needing the tape before our Walmart trip so we are going with the purple. I think it's a nice contrast. =) As you can see the cast goes up to the ridge on her chest or right around the dolls foot. Although she does have a little bit more of her left leg showing you are kind of seeing up the cast making it look really short here.

For anyone wondering this is her sleeping shirt; a whopping $3.50 at Walmart for a shirt two sizes bigger then she would normally wear. The diaper is a 1.0 BumGenius one size pocket diaper from Cotton Babies. She has been able to wear this same diaper since she was two months old (around 8 lbs).