On Monday, Jackson had his long awaited orthopedic appointment at Shriner's Hospital. We wanted to go primarily for them to check out his hips and shoulders. It was a good appointment. He was seen by a team of people: social worker who functions as a care coordinator, nurse, PT, OT, and resident and attending orthopedic surgeons.
He got x-rays of his hips and his spine. He had to sit upright on a bench to get the spine x-ray, which was very difficult for him and for me (as I had to support him there).
As I suspected, there were problems with his hips. He has hip dysplasia, as shown on the x-rays. We knew there were issues with his hips because of his increasing "froggy" positions of his legs. However, I was told by the doctor that it is actually good for his hips to be in that froggy position, that it actually keeps his hip where they are supposed to be. At this time they are not going to do anything for his hips aside from keeping an eye on them. This is very common in children with CP.
A surprise to me though, was that he has scoliosis. They said it was a curve of 20%, his x-ray looked quite curvy to me. This is also a very common condition in children with CP. I guess it should not have been that much of a surprise because he always looks to the left and has different muscle tone on the left and right sides of his body. This is again something they are going to watch, but not treat at this time.
The recommendation is for him to get x-rays annually until the age of 9 or 10, and then every 6 months. He goes back in 6 months for another appointment.
The very cool thing is that Shriner's is only about a 10 minute drive from our house. If you know Chicago, you know that you really can't get anywhere in 10 minutes. They also provide totally free care.
