Family Emergency

I got a very scary phone call from Dan while I was trying to secretly shop at Target last night. His sister (who is just a pre-teen) hurt her leg somehow, and it had gotten so bad that she was having a difficult time walking. So, they went off to the Dr. to get it checked out. After several hours of x-rays and testing her knee and hip mobility, they came back with a diagnosis of a Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis.

The patient's left hip (arrow) shows that a slight shift of the head of the femur occurred through the growth plate.

(Courtesy of John Killian, MD, Birmingham, AL)

Like everyone other than orthopedic surgeons, I had no idea what this is. Apparently, the femoral head of her femur shifted off her femoral head growth plate. Ouch! They scheduled her for emergency surgery for this morning to put a screw in to hold her femoral head in place.

A screw is inserted to prevent any further slip of the femoral head through the growth plate.

(Courtesy of John Killian, MD, Birmingham, AL)

They have no idea what caused this, but Dan’s sister was such a trooper. Dan was able to take the first half day off from work, and I took the whole day off. We spent the morning waiting with his family while his sister had the surgery. We weren’t able to wait for his sister to wake up, but she did fantastic. She wasn’t nervous going in, she was in a great mood, and when I talked to her this evening, she was recovering quickly. She’ll stay tonight in the hospital, and she’ll be back in school Monday.  She won't be able to play basketball the rest of this season, but she should be able to next year, and she should be able to continue to cheer.  There is a small risk of her other femoral head slipping, but I hope not. 

The very odd part of this was Dan's sister was in the same OR prep room as Dan, and we went into the same office to hear the results of the surgery.  I hope next year we can go without anyone needing surgery, or else they will have to put a "New" plaque on these rooms.