Well, it started out as an orthopedic surgeon visit(which she has every 6 months) We typically see an orthopedist at Texas Children’s Hospital.  But we had learned of a surgery called PERCS, which could help Cayden with her spasticity.  So we made an appointment with a different orthopedist, who specializes in the PERCS surgery.  So we go in and have a hip xray(a typical ortho visit for Cayden, they always want to look at the hips of kiddos with CP, well we found out that in the last 6 months her left hip went from 30% subluxed to 50+% subluxed(out of the socket) her left hip is still basically the same as 6 months ago at around 30%.  Soooooooo along with getting info on the PERCS surgery we decided to go forward with a reconstructive hip surgery.  It seems to us and the docs too that Cayden is having pain.  It is so hard to know for sure with Cayden because she can not just tell us what is wrong.  But is seems her hip does hurt her.  Well, anyhow….surgery is scheduled for Jan 27th….with her having the hip surgery along with PERCS she will have to be in the hospital for at least 3 nights….uggg…..if she had only needed to have the PERCS surgery then it would have only been a day surgery and she would have been home that night.  But the hip surgery is a big time surgery and will require a hospital stay and then a cast for 6-8weeks.  YUCK!

I will give you a little more info on PERCS in layman terms.  Basically with PERCS they cut small slits in the top layers of the muscles right close to where the tendons connect to the muscles.  These “frees up” the muscles and keeps them from being so tight.

Now for the hip surgery…they have to rebuild part of her hip joint with artificial bone and paste.  Then they realign her leg bone into the proper position then they cast her leg in an outward angle to allow the bone time to heal and keep her leg still while it heals.  Sounds straight forward….but with Cayden and how spasticy her muscles are….when her legs tighten up the cast is very likely to break, so she will probably end up with a specially made orthotic (basically a thick, hard plastic cast) that holds her hip in position while it heals.  Her legs naturally scissor they cross at the calves, all the time, so keeping them outward is going to be a BIG ORDEAL.