New Hips for Mommy!
Donation protected
Join the DeGroot family on their journey to see Suzanne walk, run and play with hips that no longer cause her pain and agony!
Partner with this young family to raise the $60,000 needed to pay for 2 hip surgeries that will enable Suzanne to finally chase her kids around the house and live pain free.
Meet Suzanne
Suzanne is 36 years old and married to her amazing husband Craig. They have three beautiful kids, Kaden (5) Davin (3) and Anaya (1). Suzanne has always been extremely active, competing in all kinds of sports and has loved hiking in the great outdoors. Craig and Suzanne met while tree planting in Northern BC. Suzanne was on her summer off of coaching basketball at the University of Waterloo. Together, Craig and Suzanne dreamed of being an active, athletic, outdoorsy family. However, only months after they were married Suzanne was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis in both of her hips. The diagnosis stopped her from not just playing sports, but even from being able to put on her own socks. It would take the next 5 years to discover that her athleticism had actually been hiding childhood developmental dysplasia. The reality of what this diagnosis has meant for Suzanne and her family has been overwhelming. Her passion for the outdoors and sports remains, but this once active and athletic young woman now struggles with daily tasks like walking stairs, bathing & dressing.
Thankfully 2 years ago Suzanne was able to be a part of an experimental stem cell research project where 8.8 million stem cells were taken from her adipose tissue, activated and re-injected into her hips, lower back and legs with the hopes they would be able to pull off some of the bad bone, replace it with new bone and grow some cartilage to ease the bone on bone grinding in her hips. While the procedure came at a significant cost to the DeGroots ($30,000), it helped enough that Suzanne was able to once again carry her 5 month old baby around and drive a car without having to manually lift her foot off the clutch. It also saved them from having to hire a nanny to watch over their children.
However, there remains significant damage and pain in her hip joint as she was warned the stem cells would not change the actual structure of her malformed hips. Recently Suzanne has now begun losing feeling in her toes and is struggling with numbness and poor circulation in her feet because her sciatic nerve is being compressed as it comes through her pelvis.
What Suzanne is in need of is some new hips!
The challenge is that she’s far too young to risk replacing her entire femoral head as is done in a Total Hip Replacement. Research from a number of national joint registries around the world are adamant that the failure rates of young women under the age of 50 getting Total Hip Replacements are far too great. That leaves only one option and thankfully, it’s a great one! Hip Resurfacing is a much more bone conserving procedure and allows young patients the opportunity to have an artifical hip joint created that mirrors their own natural size and movement patterns. We’ll include a few links to fascinating videos that explain the procedure in more detail. But suffice to say – these 2 hip surgeries will allow Suzanne the opportunity to get back to being a fun loving, active mamma to these 3 adorable kids!
Why we need your help
Suzanne is an excellent candidate for Hip Resurfacing surgery and has been accepted by Dr. James Pritchett in Seattle WA. Her right hip will be done on April 26th, 2017 followed by her left hip 8-10 weeks later. It will take a year for her to fully recover and gain back all the strength and mobility she has lost these past 7 years, yet Dr. Pritchett’s research and published results are extremely exciting with not a single failure in all of the women he’s performed the procedure on since he began using his device in 2001! Machine generated wear tests suggest it may be a life long solution with 40+ years of durability. The exciting news is that Dr. Pritchett feels confident that not only will Suzanne be able to walk and perform daily functions in a normal manner, but that she will also be able to get back to hiking and playing sports. She's pumped to win her first foot race against her 3 and 5 year old boys!
If you knew Suzanne growing up, before osteoarthritis slowed her down – this is such exciting and inspiring news! We’re beyond thrilled that Suzanne is a qualified candidate for the procedure! Her only barrier is Canadian Health Care won’t offer Out of Country Funding. Two years ago the leading manufacturing company for Hip Resurfacing pulled their smaller sized components because there is an extremely high failure rate for women if their surgeons do not perform the surgery very regularly. All but one surgeon in Canada stopped performing Hip Resurfacings on women with small femoral head sizes and unfortunately the one surgeon left doing it had to switch his device and has since only performed the surgery on 5 women the last 2 years - far less than Dr. Pritchett’s 5-7 women a week for the last 15 years. However, because there is still one surgeon left, Canadian Health Care won’t provide the funding.
Perhaps if the way the failures occured was not so distressing, this surgeon might remain an option, but if the hips fail it is often because of pseudo tumors which create dangerous infections forcing patients to have the hip removed entirely while they lie in bed for up to 6 weeks on IV antibiotics. At which point, total hip replacements must be done regardless of age. The surgeon in Canada also has a 12 month wait list to perform the surgery and he uses a metal on metal device that research considers of risk since it may edge load if not placed at exactly the right angles and release metal ions into the body.
In contrast - the regularity with which Dr. Pritchett performs the surgery, and his published success rates, are phenominal; his device is not metal on metal; and thankfully Dr. Pritchett's timeline will allow Suzanne the opportunity to end the 7 year struggle almost a year sooner!
Your support will help Suzanne achieve a new freedom from pain and restriction and allow her to be the wife and mother she's always dreamed she could be! Thanks for taking the time to learn about her story! Please share her story on your social media! We need all the help we can get!
Curious about the actual surgery?
Here's a Short video explaining Hip Resurfacing Surgery
(close to what she'll have, but without using metal)
For more information about Dr. Pritchett in Seattle, WA and the Hip Resurfacing surgery... Check out this link...
And this one.
* * * * * * * * *
And in case you’re in need of some encouragement and hope...
Her go to inspiration by Andy Stanley when feeling down & out - for those times you're losing hope with no end in sight… Its called, “In the Meantime – What do you do when there’s nothing you can do?
And 4 songs that speak truth to her soul and keep her heart’s perspective steady...
“Make A Way” by I Am They
“Trust In You” by Lauren Daigle
“I Am Not Alone” by Kari Jobe
“Angel Armies” by Chris Tomlin
Partner with this young family to raise the $60,000 needed to pay for 2 hip surgeries that will enable Suzanne to finally chase her kids around the house and live pain free.
Meet Suzanne
Suzanne is 36 years old and married to her amazing husband Craig. They have three beautiful kids, Kaden (5) Davin (3) and Anaya (1). Suzanne has always been extremely active, competing in all kinds of sports and has loved hiking in the great outdoors. Craig and Suzanne met while tree planting in Northern BC. Suzanne was on her summer off of coaching basketball at the University of Waterloo. Together, Craig and Suzanne dreamed of being an active, athletic, outdoorsy family. However, only months after they were married Suzanne was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis in both of her hips. The diagnosis stopped her from not just playing sports, but even from being able to put on her own socks. It would take the next 5 years to discover that her athleticism had actually been hiding childhood developmental dysplasia. The reality of what this diagnosis has meant for Suzanne and her family has been overwhelming. Her passion for the outdoors and sports remains, but this once active and athletic young woman now struggles with daily tasks like walking stairs, bathing & dressing.
Thankfully 2 years ago Suzanne was able to be a part of an experimental stem cell research project where 8.8 million stem cells were taken from her adipose tissue, activated and re-injected into her hips, lower back and legs with the hopes they would be able to pull off some of the bad bone, replace it with new bone and grow some cartilage to ease the bone on bone grinding in her hips. While the procedure came at a significant cost to the DeGroots ($30,000), it helped enough that Suzanne was able to once again carry her 5 month old baby around and drive a car without having to manually lift her foot off the clutch. It also saved them from having to hire a nanny to watch over their children.
However, there remains significant damage and pain in her hip joint as she was warned the stem cells would not change the actual structure of her malformed hips. Recently Suzanne has now begun losing feeling in her toes and is struggling with numbness and poor circulation in her feet because her sciatic nerve is being compressed as it comes through her pelvis.
What Suzanne is in need of is some new hips!
The challenge is that she’s far too young to risk replacing her entire femoral head as is done in a Total Hip Replacement. Research from a number of national joint registries around the world are adamant that the failure rates of young women under the age of 50 getting Total Hip Replacements are far too great. That leaves only one option and thankfully, it’s a great one! Hip Resurfacing is a much more bone conserving procedure and allows young patients the opportunity to have an artifical hip joint created that mirrors their own natural size and movement patterns. We’ll include a few links to fascinating videos that explain the procedure in more detail. But suffice to say – these 2 hip surgeries will allow Suzanne the opportunity to get back to being a fun loving, active mamma to these 3 adorable kids!
Why we need your help
Suzanne is an excellent candidate for Hip Resurfacing surgery and has been accepted by Dr. James Pritchett in Seattle WA. Her right hip will be done on April 26th, 2017 followed by her left hip 8-10 weeks later. It will take a year for her to fully recover and gain back all the strength and mobility she has lost these past 7 years, yet Dr. Pritchett’s research and published results are extremely exciting with not a single failure in all of the women he’s performed the procedure on since he began using his device in 2001! Machine generated wear tests suggest it may be a life long solution with 40+ years of durability. The exciting news is that Dr. Pritchett feels confident that not only will Suzanne be able to walk and perform daily functions in a normal manner, but that she will also be able to get back to hiking and playing sports. She's pumped to win her first foot race against her 3 and 5 year old boys!
If you knew Suzanne growing up, before osteoarthritis slowed her down – this is such exciting and inspiring news! We’re beyond thrilled that Suzanne is a qualified candidate for the procedure! Her only barrier is Canadian Health Care won’t offer Out of Country Funding. Two years ago the leading manufacturing company for Hip Resurfacing pulled their smaller sized components because there is an extremely high failure rate for women if their surgeons do not perform the surgery very regularly. All but one surgeon in Canada stopped performing Hip Resurfacings on women with small femoral head sizes and unfortunately the one surgeon left doing it had to switch his device and has since only performed the surgery on 5 women the last 2 years - far less than Dr. Pritchett’s 5-7 women a week for the last 15 years. However, because there is still one surgeon left, Canadian Health Care won’t provide the funding.
Perhaps if the way the failures occured was not so distressing, this surgeon might remain an option, but if the hips fail it is often because of pseudo tumors which create dangerous infections forcing patients to have the hip removed entirely while they lie in bed for up to 6 weeks on IV antibiotics. At which point, total hip replacements must be done regardless of age. The surgeon in Canada also has a 12 month wait list to perform the surgery and he uses a metal on metal device that research considers of risk since it may edge load if not placed at exactly the right angles and release metal ions into the body.
In contrast - the regularity with which Dr. Pritchett performs the surgery, and his published success rates, are phenominal; his device is not metal on metal; and thankfully Dr. Pritchett's timeline will allow Suzanne the opportunity to end the 7 year struggle almost a year sooner!
Your support will help Suzanne achieve a new freedom from pain and restriction and allow her to be the wife and mother she's always dreamed she could be! Thanks for taking the time to learn about her story! Please share her story on your social media! We need all the help we can get!
Curious about the actual surgery?
Here's a Short video explaining Hip Resurfacing Surgery
(close to what she'll have, but without using metal)
For more information about Dr. Pritchett in Seattle, WA and the Hip Resurfacing surgery... Check out this link...
And this one.
* * * * * * * * *
And in case you’re in need of some encouragement and hope...
Her go to inspiration by Andy Stanley when feeling down & out - for those times you're losing hope with no end in sight… Its called, “In the Meantime – What do you do when there’s nothing you can do?
And 4 songs that speak truth to her soul and keep her heart’s perspective steady...
“Make A Way” by I Am They
“Trust In You” by Lauren Daigle
“I Am Not Alone” by Kari Jobe
“Angel Armies” by Chris Tomlin
Organizer
Suzanne Korthuis DeGroot
Organizer
Lethbridge, AB
