Orthopedic Appointment

Travis saw Dr. Santora last Thursday (Dec 4th) for his routine orthopedic appointment. During T's genetics appointment 2 days earlier with Dr. Viskochil several concerns arose regarding T's spine. So, I guess it was "fortunate" T was sick in November resulting in the orthopedic appointment occurring after the genetics appointment. We asked to be seen in clinic before having any imaging done, don't want to add in more radiation exposure than necessary.

Dr. Santora arrived in the room and started talking with both T and I. We discussed the good news regarding T's femur fracture healing. Dr. Santora agreed that it would be good to leave the metal plate and screws in for now, but there may be a time where we would want to remove that hardware. Dr. Santora commented how the plate in T's leg is a big one, I forgot to bring the CD that had the images of the fracture for Shriners to load into their system.

We discussed the "scalloping" in T's vertebrae and compression of one side of T's disc and the upcoming spinal MRI on the 16th. He said he would like to have the MRI images to look at before making any decisions. Dr. Santora did not seem surprised that this was happening. He also noticed some scoliosis in Travis' upper back just by looking at T when he was sitting, Travis had a gown on so he could see his back.

Dr. Santora checked Travis' legs and determined he would like images done of T's leg to check on the valgus (knock-kneed) amount. T's physical therapist mentioned his concern of the valgus getting worse over time and that the time for surgery may be nearing.

T rocking the x-ray attire

Dr. Santora confirmed the suspicion and said while not an emergency, T will need surgery to start the process to straighten out T's left knee. Ideally, the center of the knee should be in line when you draw a line from the center of the hip to the center of the ankle. This surgery will occur in the summer of 2015.

This surgery involves inserting an "8" plate into the side of T's knee and will be a small incision compared to the large one to repair T's femur fracture. Typically these plates stay in around a year. Dr, Santora said that they will probably shut down the femur growth plate at the knee when they remove the "8" plate. The left leg measures 8 cm longer than the right and the formula for "catch up" growth is ~1cm per year. This second surgery would occur when T is ~9 years old and would allow for 8 years to catch up (when T's 17).

We will see Dr. Santora in the spring for another appointment and to schedule the first surgery. At that time, we will ask more detailed questions about both surgeries. The recovery from the summer 2015 surgery is 2-3 weeks and T can bear weight soon after surgery. He will be in a knee immobilizer the first week. The growth plate surgery in 2016 will not keep Travis at his current height, I'm not sure on all the specifics...one thing at a time.

Lots of questions to come, but we are starting to have a more firm timeline of events. The role of the tumor also adds another variable that could impact things. Thank you for the continued prayers and support. For now, medically-speaking, we focus on T's Dec 16th entire spine MRI.