First Visit with Dr. Standard
It has been an extremely long day. I will do my best to describe the events of today. We started out by taking the RMH shuttle to the hospital this morning. Once there, we where in very fast and on our way. I must say everyone we have seen here has been very punctual, courteous, and organized. After some light paperwork Hunter had some X-rays done and then we moved to the exam room. We meet Maryland the coordinator, Lee the assistant, Ann the nurse, and finally Dr. Shawn Standard. We discussed what we have been through and the options we had in front of us. Hunter range of motion(ROM) was not as good as I had thought. He only has about 5% ROM in his Perthes hip. One option was to basically continue down the path we have been traveling. With braces similar to the broomstick casts that he has been in. This would ultimately lead to more uncertainty as the doctor stated "we could still be in the same place in 3 months". After speaking with everyone, seeing multiple patient x-rays, photo albums, and success stories we decided to go with the external fixator surgery. At Hunter's age and with his diagnoses the doctor has an 87-90% success rate with normal activities in approximately one year. Hunter will have his surgery Wednesday March 14th. During the surgery he will be outfitted with the external fixator, have Botox injections, and bone stem cells injected to speed the regrowth of the femoral head. Dr. Standard has been seeing Perthes patients for 20 years and in all the fixator surgeries that he has done he has never needed to do a second surgery. Hunter will have to wear the fixator for 4 months. Thankfully the fixator is much less cumbersome than the casts he has worn. It is also a bit more mobile and waterproof. This will allow him to shower and swim in the pool. After surgery is over Hunter will stay two nights in the hospital. He will then start physical therapy here for 1-2 weeks. We toured the PT area today and they were also extremely helpful. They had the most tools I have seen geared towards our type of needs along with an indoor PT pool.
Once our hospital adventure was over it was 75 degrees here today so we took advantage of the weather and walked the inner harbor on the Chesapeake Bay. We all enjoyed the stress free few hours of taking in some beautiful sites. Hunter bought some candy and saw 4 very interesting boats. We also went into and toured the lighthouse here in the inner harbor. Finally, it was back to our worries as we headed to Walmart to stock up on some small meals and snacks. With a few days to kill before surgery, the Ronald McDonald House has some free passes to the National Aquarium and Port Harbor Children's Museum. So with rainy weather predicted we are going to try to visit the Aquarium tomorrow.
Thanks once again for all the thoughts and prayer, they are well needed. We will continue to try and keep you all updated.
Love from Baltimore,
Hunter, Angie, and Travis