Healthy Hip Week

Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip as been my nemesis for a while now and continues to be so.  This week is Healthy Hip Week and as such I am handing my blog over to DDH.  This week I aim to raise awareness of DDH and will be linking to some fantastic bloggers who have shared their experiences.  I also have some guest posts from mums who will detail how DDH has affected them.

Since starting this journey I have met some amazing children and chatted with their strong mums, the mums sharing our experience come from Australia, USA and right here in the UK.  Our facebook support group is a constant source of information and support.  We probably all wish we hadn’t met each other but are entirely glad of the support and the understanding of what we are going through.

During this healthy hip week I have some stories of DDH to share. I will be hosting the personal experiences of how their child DDH was diagnosed, the initial shock and the treatment that followed.  I also wanted to pull some amazing posts together, posts that show the true face of DDH.

Firstly the signs and symptoms can be quite obvious when you know what you are looking for. And yet for too many of our children that diagnosis is too late coming Abby’s mum spent months hearing clicks and telling doctors before the diagnosis was made.

Once diagnosed the hard cold reality of operation day comes round quickly as Aleena’s story shows. However life does thankfully return to a sense of normal. We were lucky as Erin adapted very well to spica even crawling about came quite easily. However changing nappies can be a right palaver as Michelle demonstrates over at Simplify Live Love. For us parents every hospital appointment leaves us with our hearts in our mouths, waiting to see an X ray hoping for an improvement but DDH is relentless it doesn’t play by fair rules and constant worry often engulfs me. Karen explains just how damn cruel DDH can be as her daughters hip even managed to dislocate in spica.

Treatment for DDH takes such a long time and I feel robbed that Erin’s second birthday was spent restricted as I explained in this open letter. However it is not all doom and gloom, Jane made us all laugh by sharing what may be the benefits of DDH in getting arms like Jodie Marsh.

In preparing to write this post a number suggested that there own favourite post from their blog was about spica removal! – Not too surprising there. I will focus on removal later in the week.

Before I finish for today (I will be back with plenty of DDH posts all week) I need you to watch this amazing video.  Having one child in spica is tough, this mum had two of her triplets in spica.  I challenge you not too get emotional watching this.

For more information on any lower limb conditions Steps should be high on your list. Steps literally picked me up.  After diagnosis I lay sobbing on the floor and made a phone call to their helpline, they couldn’t make the treatment or diagnosis go away.  But they provided me with all the information and dvds I needed to understand this condition.  As a small charity they are always looking for support both to raise awareness and fianicially. Without Steps I don’t know how we would have coped in those early days, there support has been amazing and continues to be so.

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