How did we get here?

Fast forward about 30 years. Ever since Elijah was born, he was always on the small side. Every time he’d go through a checkup, they’d tell us what percentile he was in, and he was always at the low-end. We knew he was starting out like me, but we didn’t know just what all that would mean. As he’s grown, we’ve noticed more and more that he was having issues primarily with his legs and more specifically with his hips. When he walks or runs, he waddles. When he sits cross-legged, his knees stick up in the air. When he sits for a while, he walks like little old man when starting out. And he just doesn’t have much stamina with his legs before they start getting tired and sore. We knew this wasn’t good, but we didn’t know of there was anything we could do about it.

So, we scheduled an appointment at Phoenix children’s hospital to get him checked out. I won’t get into all of the details, but after about two years of many different appointments, x-rays, and doctors we heard what we were expecting. He had it too. But they were also able to give us a more specific diagnosis. It’s spondylometaphyseal dysplasia – Sutcliffe type (or corner fracture type). They’re able to diagnose it as such because this type produces what look like tiny fractures on the edges of some of the bones. These apparently go away after puberty, which is likely why they didn’t see them in me when I was checked out. But now, what to do?

The most obvious issue they could see was the coxa Vara in his hips, and they let us know about a procedure they could do to help restore his hip joints to the correct angle. This is called a valgus osteotomy. It involves cutting his femurs and then fixing the cut femur and necks together with metal plates that hold them at the correct angle. The bones then heal back together at this angle, and them after a year, they take the plates out.

He’ll have this procedure done on August 2nd.

If there’s something that we can do to help him live a better life and/or to at least lessen some of the issues he’ll have later in life, we want to do it. But it’s hard, especially as we’re so close.

He’ll be unable to put any weight on his legs for 6-8 weeks, which for any 6 year-old boy would be tough. Then he’ll have physical therapy, and will be using a walker and his wheelchair for a while. Total healing time is somewhere between 4-6 months. But then, after a year, they need to go back in and take the metal plates out. That surgery won’t be as bad, but obviously, will still be surgery.

What happens after that? We hope that life will hopefully be back to (mostly) normal, but with some improvement.

How will he handle all of this? I don’t know. I’d love to say that he’s going to face it down without any fear and power through the pain, but I just don’t know. This is new for all of us, and no matter how you look at it, it’s scary.

We’re doing out best to make this a positive experience for him. Hopefully, we can do a decent job of getting his mind off of things at least somewhat, and when he remembers this 30 years from now, he’ll remember all the good things.

God knew exactly what he was doing when he made Elijah, and we know that there is a great plan for his life. We’re grateful that God gave us the privilege to be His parents and we pray that God uses this in ways that we could never even imagine.