Hayley's Hip Surgery

Well... for those who do not know, Hayley our 7 yr old daughter was diagnosed with Legg Calve Perthes a little over a month ago. This news was absolutely devastating to my wife and me because we knew exactly what that meant. When I was 5 yrs old, I got diagnosed with the same disease, and have now been dealing with the after effects for over 26 yrs. A  basic description of the disease is the bloodflow to the ball or head of the hip gets cut off and over a period of months or years, it dies and completely whithers away. It does grow back but usually not perfect or without alot of future complications. In my case it grew back bigger than normal and flat on the top causing my whole hip to be filled with arthritis, and in need of a full hip replacement when I feel ready to do so. So as you might understand, when we took her in the first time her hip was hurting and they came back with the diagnosis, to say I was devastated is an understatement. My wife immediately went into full research mode to see if there was possibly anything else we could do to not have our beautiful girl go thru what I have. We went to 2 different doctors in Wichita to get their opinions, and even made a trip to St. Louis to the Shriners hospital for their opinion. All doctors we went to wanted to treat this the same way I was treated 26 yrs ago. Wait and see..and treat the disease at whatever stage its in at that time. We have joined Perthes support groups (amazing by the way), and talked to numerous parents of kids with the disease currently and in the past. That is where we found out about Dr. Standard. Dr. Standard is a pediatric orthopaedic Surgeon in Baltimore who is pretty much the "go-to" for Legg Calve Perthes. We set up an internet consultation with him to get his opinion. He strongly suggested an immediate surgery to drill the head to increase bloodflow, inject stem cells, cut the tendon for flexibility, and install an external fixator on her for a period of 4 months. This procedure has a 90% success rate for little to no future complications, and can take the regrowth period down to months instead of years. One BIG catch.... We have to go to Baltimore to have this performed. They scheduled us for our consultation on thurs, June 4th, and surgery on Tues, June 9th. This is the reason for starting this page. Travel to Baltimore, the long 3 week stay, and the huge medical bills we are going to rack up with all of the physical therapy, and follow up appts. Ginny is going to stay in Baltimore with her the whole time, and we are still trying to decide if I will be staying as well, or coming back to Wichita to work. Any and all help is more than greatly appreciated. If you know me very well you know I am not one to ask for any help or anything unless it is absolutely a must. Please help us reach or surpass our goal by sharing this as well.