Patient Stories

Rebekah

In 1990 I was born with hip dysplasia in my left hip, but it went undiagnosed. It wasn’t until I started walking with a profound limp that it was obvious to my parents something was not right. I was diagnosed with hip dysplasia, something unheard of in our small central IL town. It was decided it was too advanced and required surgery. The doctor who operated had never seen anything like it before and he was so excited he filmed my walking and sent it to some university or other.

So at 1 1/2 years old I had a corrective surgery to repair the hip, then another surgery to lengthen my femur. My parents will tell you how terrifying it was watching their precious blonde haired blue eyed girl hobble down to surgery holding a nurses hand. The good news is I made a full recovery, the bad news is my bones were so weak from being casted as soon as I was healed I fell and broke my leg.

My childhood was full of X-rays and doctor visits to make sure I was developing normally. Luckily the experience prepared my parents for when my siblings were born. You can imagine they religiously checked their hips for any signs of hip issues. My sister also had dysplasia in the left hip but it was caught early enough it was corrected with a brace. My brother had no dysplasia but recently fell and slipped his growth plate in his hip requiring surgery on both hips, so he joined his sisters in the hip problem club.

The doctors told me I would walk normally but would never be a runner. I defied them by making sure I was the fastest runner out of all my relatives. And today I am married to a distance runner, I have ran 3 5ks, worked as a chef (a very physically demanding job) and now I have a little blonde blue eyed boy of my own! It makes me so happy to know that I am not alone. In my early teens years I was hungry for information about what happened to me but was disappointed to find only articles about canines. So thank you for this organization, if my parents had this information I know they could have benefited greatly, and would have had greater peace of mind. Here’s to the future!