A tale of two hips.

Hips, our lives recently have been revolving around these joints.

Squeaky had his closed reduction this week. It was long and ultimately disappointing day.
We arrived at the hospital at 7.30 after a very early start with a chilled baby, surprising considering he had missed breakfast. We got shown into the day ward and settled in with the standard visits from the anesthetist, surgeon and nurses with their repetitive but needed questions. We signed forms and Squeaky smiled at every one. We changed him into his huge hospital gown and waited to be called to theatre.

For reference, a closed reduction is when the patient is put to sleep and the hip injected with dye and x-rayed and then manually manipulated into place, and x-rayed to check the placement.  It is done under General so all the muscles are completely relaxed. Once the joint is in place the patient in put in a spica cast, a plaster cast from waist to ankle of the affected leg(s), knee on the other, for 12 weeks.  Sometimes a tendon in the groin is released (cut) to release the tension on the hip to stop it being pulled out of place.

I walked him to the theatre, no bed for him, just the comfort of mum’s arms. He was very interested in everything going on.  I sat in a chair, answered the questions as they made sure they had the correct patient. I held him as they put him to sleep, not a pleasant experience as he struggled against the mask and then went floppy. I had to hold my head back because the smell of the anaesthetic gave me some unpleasant flashes of the times I had smelt the same smell.

Mr Gin and I went and had some down time in the hospital restaurant. We went back and waited for the return of our small boy. The surgeon, Ms Bijlsma came to us in her scrubs and a serious look on her face. She was not happy with the procedure. Squeaky’s hip that felt stable was in fact very unstable and she was not convinced that the hip was in place. It looked good on the x-ray but she wasn’t that happy. She said she will order a CT scan to take slices of the hip from other angles to see if it is in place. If not then we would have to look at more invasive options. Not great news and we crossed our fingers it worked.

I went to get Squeaky from recovery; he was being nursed by a nurse whilst he screamed. I held him and tried to settle him, the poor possum was in a strange place, in a cast and hungry.  We got back to the ward, he was still screaming, I pretty much squashed the suggestion of offering him water. He was hungry and needed comfort. So juggled him around and fed him, the cast made him heavy and awkward. The feed settled him and he went to sleep on me, we changed parents as beds and then got him to sleep in the cot.

I took him to the CT scan in the stroller/buggy and he was starting to be his normal self. Mr Gin had gone to get some fresh air and lunch. Squeaky was chilled in the CT scanner and we returned to the ward to wait.

Ms Bijlsma arrived and the look on her face said it all. It had failed, the back of Squeaky’s hip socket is flatish making it difficult to stay in place. Poor Squeaky, going through all this for it not to work.

The next step is an open reduction, more invasive using surgery to ‘fiddle’ with the joint and tendons and fat to get it to stay in place.  Then into a Spica cast, again.  This cannot be done till he is one. I can remember my final open reduction, I was six. My heart breaks for Squeaky.

We took him off to have the cast removed, another situation that bought back a lot of memories. I am so glad we had not taken the Ear defenders off the buggy.

Finally, we took out little boy with his stitches from his tendon release, home. He was super cuddly and clingy the following day as we managed his pain and generally rallied together.

Before Squeaky’s operation I went and introduced Mr Hutt to Squeaky and we discussed my thigh pain which has not disappeared. I am having a CT scan this week to work out what our next step is and if I want to have surgery to fix the issue.  At this moment it is going on the back burner a bit because Squeaky is the priority.
For now, we are going to do a lot of swimming while he is cast free.

In other news, we are running a fund raiser for the hospital that treated Squeaky on the Isle of Skye, Info here: Fund raising for MacKinnon Hospitial