Hip X-Rays and Recovery

We met with the surgeon post-surgery. Over all he was happy with the result. Her hip sockets were so shallow and had to be rotated so much that they couldn't use her own bone because they needed too big of wedges to fill in the "gap". So they used donor bone. That's good with me since it leaves that part of her hips intact. If you look really hard you can see the chunks of donor bone. It's so wedged in there that they didn't need the 4" pins. That's good with me too. They also used some of the leg bone that they removed from the femoral osteotomies. The following picture shows her "before" hips on the left and the "after" hips on the right.  The hip sockets should surround the top of the leg bone. You can see in the post-surgery x-ray that they cut and rotated her hips and they are now in better alignment over the femur. The left hip (shown on the right) is not quite completely covering the head of the femur. But he thinks it will do. (There is a 15-20% of failure or that she could need further hip work.)  You can see the plates that reconnect the femur. Those will stay unless she developes a problem with them in which case they can be surgically removed. 

 

The nurse was concerned that Ainsley was oversedated but the anesthesiologist on call just checked her out. Basically the epidural has made her so comfortable that she's taking a power nap, and some of the anesthesia is still in effect. She looks great! The cast is not as wide as we expected. It seems narrower than it was last time, when she was only a year old.  Things could change but I think she's actually going to be fairly comfortable when she wakes up, which is a huge relief.