Tag: Perthes

All Change!

When I was not much older than Hpops I had life sorted. I was going to be a teacher, get married, have two children – a boy and a girl, and write a book for children and make my million allowing me to live in a big house with a huge willow tree with a bench underneath it!

So – I am a teacher, I have written a book, although it is for adults and written the first draft of a book for children, however millions – not even in pennies and I have realised how naive the idea of making millions from writing is. Instead of two children I have three although we do have at least one boy and one girl. The house is large but the willow is an oak and the azalea I fell in love with in our old house is still missing and there is no bench underneath! We are putting a willow tunnel in the garden for the kids so that sort of counts, can sit in it I guess!

I am still writing! The draft of the kids books needs typing and Tumbles 2 is well underway. I have two other books in note form, one for tweens. This is the book that I have always wanted to write since I was small and now have the experience and research to support it. The issue – even when it is written I am not sure I will be able to release it – what if no-one likes it? The book that I feel has been my best idea ever. To be honest I am not sure I can afford to worry about that, I want to write, maybe I even need to write it before I can move forward. I have another book I stated waiting for National Novel writing month and although I hit the word count I never finished it!

The problem is I am a self-professed prevaricator and so to solve this I have started setting myself time limits. It is the one way I can ensure I knuckle down to something and get it done. I have added an app on the phone and i-pad which tells me off if I miss a deadline and so no more prevaricating! Perhaps the most exciting development of recent days is the one I have made to re-train. I love teaching and the energy the children bring. I love it when they ‘get’ something and I know I have helped them to get it but for now it isn’t working.

The kids need me at the moment, Imp has his Perthes to contend with. This is on the mend and hopefully following his Easter surgery he should be able to return to everyday activities on the 12th May. He will still require physiotherapy and perhaps some hydrotherapy while his hip continues to recover. Who knows he may even require further surgery but at the moment things are healing well and we hope he will avoid it! Pixie is moving on to junior school this September and Hpops to senior school! Despite this their holidays still differ and so to work full time is difficult and with the puppy not necessarily the best choice. I have looked at a couple of schools with job share opportunities but with Mr T working long hours or travelling we felt that me working full time would create a lot more logistical difficulties than it would solve. This means I have made the difficult decision to teach perhaps on a supply basis for now. Unless the perfect job in the perfect location appears I will start my course to re-train in October.

Re-training is both exciting and daunting, having consulted a career adviser I have decided to go for psychology with counselling in the hope that by the time Pixie gets to senior school I will have a BSc and be well on the way to getting my doctorate. The plan is to become an educational psychologist or counsellor. This allows me to use the teaching skills I already have, open up new career paths and hopefully help me with my writing as well.

The kids have had a quiet Easter holiday, poor old Hpops suffered with an ear and throat infection and was not feeling well for half the time. Imp had his surgery so wasn’t feeling well for a few days as well and Pixie has found herself itchy and snuffly thanks to the warm weather and high pollen count. Even so I can’t help feeling blessed. I have three lovely kids, a comfortable house, a husband who works hard for all of us and career options. Yes it will be hard work and I have no idea if it is the right decision! A little bit of me hopes the right teaching job will jump in front of me but sometimes you need to take a risk!

The last few years have hardly gone to plan but we have managed through all of it and I think despite the times when we felt like we were breaking apart we have come through it stronger. In some ways the new challenge will be welcome, I have pursued OU courses in sociology, creative writing, philosophy and psychology is an area I have always been interested in. I’ve never really known where to start apart form the GCSE I did ages ago. I have lots of books on the subject and watch far too many psychological thrillers and TV shows as well as reading lots of crime novels and thrillers so it should be a good fit! Hopefully over the summer I can get to grips with some of these books before everything kicks off in October as well as taking the kids out and about. The hope is that by the summer Imp will be back to full strength so watch out beaches, theme park and museums we intend to make up for last summer!

Incidentally have to mention Future Learn, they offer free courses from all sorts of sources and in all sorts of subjects. There are no examinations but many of them offer the opportunity to interact with other students! I have been completing the Forensic Psychology one which encourages you to solve a crime and others in the same area and find them fascinating and accessible! I have also been dabbling into the Very Short Introduction books and have decided that the best thing to do is start with number 1 Classics and work my way through them. Easy to read and with reading lists for those subjects that pique your interest they are a great way to discover more!

I was worried I was going to be bored in September with more time on my hands in term time, but now with study, writing, supply teaching and an abundance of reading to do I think I am in danger of running out of time! Life is challenging and many of my friends have been going through tough times and I know I am not looking forward to the next few months. Hpops leaving junior school fills me with dread. It is a big adventure going to senior school and I only hope we have chosen the right one for her and that she will be happy, because if she is happy she will do her best, and doing her best is what matters. Pixie enters the juniors and again I am not 100% sure she is in the right place, time will tell. Imp is more settled than this time last year and is happy but there is always tension about who the next teacher will be. H-pops has several big events, the summer play, leavers disco and taster day at her new school, meeting new classmates and teachers and learning to navigate around her new school. Here Pixie is at an advantage as she has grown up around the school she will be going to and if anything is in danger of being too confident!

As parents we too must attend meetings for the junior and senior school. Wearing a name badge with the name of your child and their new teacher is a strange experience and will be no less daunting this time around. We have no idea yet if Pixie will remain with any of her friends but we too have to wonder how we will get on with the other mummies and daddies. Perhaps we will meet people who will become life time friends or perhaps we will just nod politely at the school gate – who knows! Time will tell, but for sure the next six months are going to be interesting.

Cast Away

Just over three weeks ago Imp had his cast removed. It wasn’t as traumatic as we expected as despite him being very nervous the staff at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital were once again fantastic. They reassured him about everything and talked to him about what they were going to do. Once it was done Imp flexed his knees a couple of time but decided it was too painful to move. Off to X-ray next to see the results of the surgery.

After meeting with his consultant who was delighted with the way the surgery had gone and was prepared him to be weight bearing again we were off to occupational therapy to return the large wheelchair! This was replaced with the wheelchair we already owned and a frame to support his walking once he was confident. We were told he needed to get up and about and to allow him to do as much as he could and work with his physiotherapist and hydrotherapist to build the muscles back up and begin to walk unaided.

Slowly but surely after some tough love and tears when he couldn’t see we managed to get him up and walking, one stair at bedtime became the whole flight in a matter of days. A few days after coming out of the cast Imp decided he wanted to try a few steps on his own, to be honest it was like watching a baby take his first steps and the emotions no less immersing. He took two awkward steps and fell forward into a hug with a massive grin on his face. It was a milestone. More and more steps followed but perhaps the pinnacle of his achievement to date was his taking part in a school swimming gala just three weeks out of cast.

He was determined to join in and he took part in two races, yes he came last but when he had done his width he had a massive cheer from the parents watching. He had got into the pool unaided, hadn’t needed the pole to grab onto and hadn’t touched the bottom during the race and got out by himself! This was for us massive and as I watched him come back to his chair poolside I had to swallow a huge lump in my throat.

Throughout the process of everything he has approached it with a positive attitude, he has had a smile on his face and while there have been difficult moments I have watched him, in the main, grow in maturity as he learns to manage his disease by himself. Following the swimming gala there was a school fete, he took the decision to attend in his wheelchair as he wanted to avoid being knocked over. Knowing what you can do independently and what you need to ask for help with is all part of it. We won’t know how much progress he has made in terms of the Perthes until the 12th August when we next see his consultant and he has an X-ray. Until then he will be attending physiotherapy and hydrotherapy at least twice a week as well as completing exercises at home.

To say the Perthes turned our world upside down would be an understatement but we can finally see Imp getting stronger and stronger despite his physiotherapist telling us that he is now -5 steps compared to where he was before surgery we know with his determined nature he will battle back to fitness. He wants to be able to join in with his sisters and now he is more mobile he is getting back into arguments with them and enjoying playing with his toys and relishing his own private bedroom space.

It hasn’t all been doom and gloom of course, only yesterday we had a family get together to celebrate Grandpa’s birthday. For the first time all five of his grandchildren were in the same place at the same time. Hpops was beside herself with excitement as she got to cuddle, feed and generally coo over her baby cousins. Today was the summer gymkhana and Hpops tried hard with her riding. Imp on the other hand visited the Queen Elizabeth Park to go to the F1 Fanzone. A VIP ticket had been arranged for him by a friend who had told them about his struggles and watching the video of him whizzing about in a Caterham, pedalling a cycle claiming it was physio and hearing the excitement in his voice as he recounted the events of the day fills me with joy. As we were sitting in the house yesterday listening to the children play with Meccano cars they had played and laughing their heads off we paused to consider how lucky we actually are.

Three wonderful children, a boy who gets on with what life throws at him and tackles it head on with a smile, two beautiful girls who are growing in confidence and ability in all areas of their life. Fantastic friends who have between them lifted both me, Mr T and the kids when we are down and who have gone out of their way to make Imp feel special in a good way. We have felt blessed to have people to pour our hearts out to and next week we attend the Perthes’ association charity afternoon which will enable all of us to speak to people who have been on the same journey as us. I feel this will be especially important for the girls as they have had to make adaptions to accommodate Imp. We have taken the decision to try and do things that all three children can take part in and this has meant the girls not necessarily doing all the things they would like to! Even so the family unit is beginning to bond again, and I have to say as I write I do feel happy to have such lovely people surrounding us and caring for us and hope at some point I get to return their kindnesses and lovely thoughts as all the treats they have given Imp have helped to temper the bad memories with good ones and for that I will always be grateful.

Perthes operation

My son Imp was diagnosed with Perthes disease in late December 2013, at the time it wasn’t considered to be too bad and was treated with hydrotherapy, physiotherapy and withdrawing from high impact activities such as football, rugby and running. This was for an active seven year old boy punishing enough but my little imp accepted it all with good grace and got on with it, continued to limp and yet seemed to enjoy his treatment particularly the hydrotherapy. I was amazed at how well he coped with so many of the things he loved to do being taken away so quickly. What struck us as well was how quickly he went from always being at the front of the queue and out in the lead when we went anywhere to having to rely on his wheelchair to get him up the hill from the local shops.

It was with some trepidation that we attended his three month check-up, we knew that the way Perthes progressed meant that in all likelihood the condition would worsen before it improved and that normality was unlikely to return to him for at least a year and possibly two. What we discovered however was that the femoral head had deteriorated to an extent that it was no longer contained in the hip. Our consultant therefore referred us to a colleague for a second opinion regarding surgery. Things moved quickly and within a week we were sitting in another hospital waiting room to meet the new consultant. He was to the point, examined imp and thought that surgery was necessary but to be sure needed an arthrogram which was performed 10 days later. The results were apparently good showing surgery would be a success and hopefully secure Imp a better long term outlook and healing.

The operation, a femoral osteotomy involved cutting a notch out of the femur, repositioning it and securing it with a plate and screws, and in Imps case keeping both hips abducted in a broomstick cast for 6 weeks. The surgery happened on the 1st May. The night before I hardly slept and during the morning before he went to theatre I was a wreck. I went into the anaesthetic room with him and he as fine until just before the anaesthetic went in when he began to panic. If I am honest I was terrified of seeing him after the operation, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to control my feelings when I saw him with his legs cast but when I did see him I held it together and it wasn’t as bad as I had feared.

the first night in hospital was horrific, imp was suffering cramps and somewhere in the small hours screamed his casts were squeezing him. Being in an orthopaedic hospital you become strangely used to hearing cries of pain but when it is your own son telling you to help him and squeezing your hands it becomes real. In the morning it was discovered that the leg was swollen and the cast needed to be split, this led to a full on panic attack, I held him and tried to reassure him but in the end I just had to be there for him. Pain relief was upped and in exhaustion he slept, I wept and then we started again. The cramps continued but the swelling reduced and Saturday proved to be a brighter day with Imp eating and suffering less with movement. Eventually he came home on Monday, it was a feat to get him in the car but we were so glad to have him home.

I had missed the girls terribly, they had been looked after wonderfully by their grandparents and been to visit Imp in the hospital but at last we were together which was comforting but also terrifying. Could we cope with moving him? What if the pain increased again? Could we handle the sleeping arrangements. We are only two days in but already Imp is only having paracetomal, he has his own bed and things around him. He has his beloved dogs and is slowly rediscovering his appetite. He has learnt to help to take his weight so he can now transfer from wheelchair to bed and back or to the sofa and so on so that one person can assist which means Mr T can return to work.

I fear boredom will begin to set in as he is now rather alert, he has been making the most of mine craft, TV, X-box and so on but we are now re-introducing some school work and we are hopeful that he will soon be able to attend again, even if on a part time basis, as it will help to keep us all same. We are all counting the days until the cast comes off, we know he may still have to use a mixture of crutches and wheelchair for a further six weeks, as well as resuming his physiotherapy and hydrotherapy regime but he seems to be showing great resilience so far. We are taking it each day at a time trying to ensure that we don’t push too hard but encourage him to go for the next step.

At this moment we have no idea how long the Perthes will take to be completely gone and how it will affect his hip long term, he could require further remodelling or even a hip replacement at some time but we are hopeful that the surgery he has just had will help to avoid these outcomes. Yes I will always remember those dark hours in the hospital when his little face was screwed up in panic and pain, but hopefully he won’t, hopefully he will realise that we did the best we could for him and helped to support him through what will undoubtedly be the hardest thing he has dealt with so far in his little life. Not to mention having to support the girls and ensure that they can express their feelings.

We have been blessed with lovely friends and family who have rallied around with offers of help and have made not only him feel special, spoiling him with cards and gifts as but helped me by responding to my desperate posts on Facebook with messages of support. It means more than people realise to see and x and know someone has read what you have written and thought of you, even for a few seconds and felt some empathy. The messages for Imp himself brought rare smiles in those first couple of days and now he seems so much more settled it seems odd thinking back to just a week ago! There is still a long road ahead but for now we are grateful he is over the surgery itself and can now heal and recuperate.

Thanks also to the Perthes Association, a small charity that supports families with children suffering from this condition offering lots of advice and support, the people on there certainly helped us to prepare for the surgery and coming home. I have also to say that the staff at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital were very good and supportive, they listened to us and took action where necessary and got us through the dark days.

For those of you who’d like to know more about Perthes have a look at the Perhtes Association website and in the interests of fundraising if you feel you can help please text PERT10 (£10 or change the number to whatever you can afford) to 70070.

Life is full of opportunities but also likes to catch us out as my little Imp has discovered but as he looks forward to getting his cast signed and returning to school I marvel at how brave he is, how he accepts the situation and gets on with it in a way I think I never could and I pray for the patience and strength to give him the support he needs in the harder times. Count down to cast off and walking again starts here…