Lucien's Medical Fund Hip Surgery

On Friday May 12, 2017 we took our sweet, 12-year-old, Lucien Roy to a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon due to a significant change in his gate (walking) habits. Everything we were doing to try and help this change from progressing was not helping him in fact it was becoming so profound that we decided it was time to see what was causing this change. After taking multiple x-rays of Lucien’s hips and watching him walk the provider came into the room to talk with us. He explained to us that Lucien has “Profound Hip Dysplasia” in both hips. In Lucien’s case his acetabulum witch is his sockets did not form correctly and his femoral head which is the top of his femur or thigh bone is not placed correctly inside the sockets. They are rotated to the front, protruding outwardly, and rubbing on the tops/tips of the sockets. Causing Lucien, a great deal of pain. Which explains his change in walking habits, not wanting to walk at all, and crying with walking. Per the provider he will need two major surgeries on both sides. Each surgery will be around 6-8 hours long with significant blood loss (precautions will be taken). The surgeries will consist of restructuring the socket in multiple places (4-5 areas), using screws if necessary to keep the correct structure, rotating his leg to allow the ball to fall back into place, cutting the ball from the femur bone, rotating the leg to match up to the ball and putting it back together with a plate and screws. Each surgery will take 4-5 days of recovery in the hospital (yes pain medication will be administered), 6 weeks of sitting in a special wheelchair to immobilize the hip (not good little-man likes to do his own thing), and if everything heels correctly 3-4 months of physical therapy. We are looking at 5.5 months per each surgery give or take recovery, heeling, and how well Lucien handles the surgery. We still have a lot to find out and the biggest part is how much our insurance will be covering the surgery, the hospital stays, medications, the special wheelchair, nursing care, stay at home assistant, physical therapy, at home schooling, and much more that will be coming up.  With this extensive surgery and recovery Lucien will be needing a lot of support emotionally and physically. We look to our close friends and family for this support through this long battle Lucien has ahead of him. Lucien’s first surgery will be August 2nd. So we have a little time to spoil him with summer fun before he gets started on his painful recovery. Many prayers for a little man!!!!