The Berg Family Est. 2010: Back to Waiting...

Last Tuesday was a big bummer. Rilynn went into the OR around noon. The plan was to take the cast off, check her right hip's progress using an arthrogram, do the open on the left hip, and recast (preferred color purple back up green). It was scheduled for a 200 minute procedure so when I walked out of the bathroom to see the surgeon talking to Travis after an hour I knew that my wishful thinking that everything magically went into place and we could get rid of the cast was likely not what he came out to tell us. When they did the arthrogram, an X-ray where they inject dye into the hip bone, the femur head was still in place but looser than they were hoping for. Both of our surgeons felt that it was better to stabilize one hip before starting on the other so preferred to wait another 3 weeks and check again. I was really disappointed but we trust our surgeons and decided to stick with their opinion and wait. So, we had a cast change instead. Her pink spica was loose fitting; she had a lot of wiggle room in her tummy area to roll and twist around, it only went to her waist, and her left leg was not fully casted. Well, her new cast is quite tight. It goes up higher, to just below her nipples, her left leg is fully casted, and there is no wiggle room. This more aggressive cast will hopefully speed up the process of the tendons to tighten. They also adjusted the angle of her right leg to a position it naturally wanted to go to. The new spica is green. Travis got to pick this one and it was intended to be a neon Seahawks green, but it turned out to be more of a Oregon Ducks green. EEEEEWWWW! She won't be wearing any yellow in the next 3 weeks. We really want a purple cast, but this is the 3rd time they haven't had purple. I'm beginning to wonder if our surgeon is color blind because one of the nurses told us purple was a color option. If you have a connection to ordering cast colors for Doernbecher, 8th floor, Maple leaf, please order us some purple. This new cast comes with more restrictions. It is taking us some time to adjust to it. She no longer fits in the hiking backpack. And we have to be extra careful not to bump her tiny feet on things like door jams which I've done a couple of times already. Our surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses at Doernbecher are awesome, but I wish we didn't have to spend so much time with them; they are starting to know who we are. I'm sure Leslie (my new friend from Kaiser scheduling) will be calling this week to schedule the next go around in about 3 weeks. My biggest frustration is we are now adding 3 more weeks to our total time in the cast, additional trips to the OR, and more times going under anesthesia. Our poor little pumpkin! Rilynn is a trooper! She's still pretty happy, eating lots, and loving her new purple Ivy Rose spica chair with her name on the back in pink. We just love our little munchkin to pieces. I'm not sure that she will be rolling much in this cast, but I wouldn't put it past her, the girl is determined to move. Unfortunately, the car bed is still with us, she just doesn't quite fit into the Hippo car seat. Hopefully in 3 more weeks we can ditch the bed and get the car seat because the bed is a pain and Ri doesn't like it much either. I've had several people ask me what will happen if in 3 weeks her right hip is still not stabilizing and the answer is, we have no idea. There are additional surgeries, but those aren't options until she is at least 18 months. They can use pins to hold the femur head in place and add a "cup" to increase the size of her socket, but she needs to have more developed bone for that to happen. At this point we can only hope that we don't have to worry about that and we see significant progress in 3 weeks. We are ready to start hearing good news any time now.

Rilynn waiting for the surgeons with Daddy.

Not the green we had in mind, but it's only 3 weeks and there are only so many colors in the rainbow. I think we are up to having at least 4 casts now.