She was a big 8lbs and 21 inches. Immediately our joy was exchanged for fear. Minutes after Briana was born, we discovered she had a hip click. She was diagnosed with hip Displasia. This was the start of her orthopedic problems. She was placed in a pelvic brace. Three months later she was out of the pelvic cast and a free girl. At 6 months old Briana fell ill and had to be hospitalized. She was in
the hospital after developing pneumonia and had an x-ray of her lungs done. The x-ray showed her lungs were clear, but the x-ray tech and doctor had another concern. They told us she had a pretty significant curve and to have our regular pediatrician look at her back. We mentioned it at a follow up appointment with our pediatrician, who quickly shrugged it off. She said infantile scoliosis was extremely rare and it wasn't a concern to her. Over the next nine months we continued to ask her to look into it, to which we got the same answer. One day after a bath, we noticed Briana had a large growth on her back. We took her back to the doctor and demanded an X-ray done and we weren't taking no for an answer. In less than 2 hours after the appointment we got our answer. It was in the form of an apology, a confirmation of scoliosis, and a referral to a specialist. We went to 4 specialists that said Briana was one of the youngest patients they have ever seen with a curve so bad. 54 degrees on the bottom curve, and 16 degrees at the top. None of them would touch her. They said she needed surgery, but they weren't willing to perform it. We finally found Shriners Hospital for Children in Chicago. We went in and found a non-surgical temporary fix to her problem- Rissor casting
We thought it would be tough, but cast after cast Briana was unphased. She was the happiest kid, and active as ever. At age 4 we got bad news. The casts weren't holding her curve anymore. Her curve had gotten worse in the case, and progressively worse from that while on a break in between casts. We had to start talking surgery. Since surgery was not our first choice. We asked if there was anything else we could do first. Halo Traction was our option. Halo traction is a process. It starts with placing the halo around her head and adding weights on to pull her back straight. It starts off with 2 lbs and goes up 2 pounds every few days. It wasn't enough to stop Briana.....
However after a month it was time to see if it helped.....
And the answer was no. We had to move forward with surgery. She was given a set of growing rods that would have to be adjusted every six months. So far she has had 4 adjustments. She has broken the rods out of place 4 times and her curve has been very reluctant to adhere to treatment. She had to have a partial fusion of the spine with the hopes to contain her higher curve. Which has not helped very much. Recently she has begun having problems she has never had before. She has a very hard time holding her head up because one of her curves is very high in her neck. Her neck at almost at a 90 degree angle when her head is lifted all the way up. Because of this she cannot always see everything in front of her. She runs into things, and has even almost walked in front of a car because she couldn't turn her head far enough to see everything when crossing the street.She is very unbalanced because the curves take a few inches off of her height on one side. She frequently falls. She has been falling much more than ever before. She fell 3 times at school in one day about a week ago. Please share her story and keep her in your prayers.
