Patient Stories
Karen Kerr
I’m Karen from Glasgow Scotland. I’m a mum to 7-year-old Lauren and married to a wonderful man named Grant. I wrote a book last year to help kids with DDH facing surger. My family had our own DDH journey and I felt I had to use all our negative experiences and turn them into positives to help other families.
Here is my story.
I have a bicornuate uterus which meant Lauren had reduced space for the whole of the pregnancy. She was also transverse breech and had to be born through a c section. They thought as a precaution due to the reduced space and the position she was in they should scan her hips. My daughter was diagnosed with bilateral hip dysplasia when she was two, however was scanned at six weeks and was missed. She has undergone open and closed reductions, femoral and pelvic osteotomies and multiple cast changes. She had 5 operations in total and 18 months in her Spica Cast.
Parallel to this I was going through brain operations for a brain condition I was born with so it was a very trying time. A low moment was when my husband and I were working 40 plus hours a week and getting no sleep and when home Lauren would be grumpy and want all of our attention. It felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel and it would never get better. We had no one around us that understood what DDH was and understood what we were going through. There is a feeling of isolation and loneliness. I’m not sure if people know they’re doing it but they seem to distance themselves when you need them the most.
I feel that by sharing my experience and showing a type of “if we can do it anyone can approach” it can give families some hope that they will get there and there is light at the end of the tunnel!!
Lauren still gets seen by her surgeon on a yearly basis and her surgeon is really pleased with her hips and they are almost perfect which is fantastic. She does what every little girl her age would do, dancing, gymnastics, and playing with friends.
“Spica Superheroes” is available on Amazon for purchase and for download to a kindle.
Karen thanks Steps DDH charity for assisting with the publicity of the book and DDH UK for promoting the book as a resource for parents. Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow also hand it out to every child that it’s diagnosed at the plaster room.