Hope

At birth, we immediately noticed that something was wrong with her right leg, the doctor stated that she thought it was clubfoot and that we should have it checked out by an orthopedic surgeon once we got moved.

Less than 12 hours after Hope was born, a nurse came into my room saying things like “Why didn’t you tell me about this? Did you not feel it was important?” All the while, my husband at the time was sitting there looking at me as if I’d been keeping something from him. I finally asked the nurse what she was talking about, at which point she turned over a piece of paper which was a report from an ultrasound I had performed August 16th, more than two months before she was born that revealed she only had one kidney and they weren’t sure if she had a bladder. I was devastated that the doctor I had trusted kept this information from me. The doctor’s suggestion was to med flight Hope to the children’s hospital in Oklahoma City where they were equipped to care for her.

We opted to go ahead and transfer her. So, at less than 12 hours old my perfect little princess was in a helicopter on her way to a hospital that was 92 miles away. While she was in the NICU an orthopedic surgeon came in to evaluate her leg and, explained that she was missing the Tibia in the right leg, otherwise known as Tibial Hemimelia and the recommendation would be amputation. She has done wonderful these last 16 months, she sits up, rolls over, crawls, feeds herself, talks some, and pulls herself up onto the left leg.

On April 10, 2008 Hope had a right knee disarticulation at Shiners’. They were unable to do the open hip reduction as planed so Hope wasn’t put into a spica cast as planned. She has done wonderfully and fitting for a prosthesis is planned for this summer — then look out world!

I love my little princess and it’s encouraging to know that we are not alone.