Our Journey Begins.....

Not really sure where to start as I am uncertain as to when the problem really started...About 3 weeks ago one morning as Dalton got out of bed he said "my 'weg' hurts"...he limped around on it for a little while and I remember asking him did he hurt it, did he fall? And he just said no. He's 4 and wide open ALL.DAY.LONG...it just made sense that he'd pulled something or hurt it falling. Fast forward a few days and I am still noticing the on and off limping but he is still continuing to play normally...pushing cars/trucks wide open down our long hallway and then slide to a stop on his knees. The Wed before Christmas Eve (12/17) he complained a good bit of leg pain..but we were leaving for the mountains the next day so I told my mom that he had been complaining some and that I guessed when I got home I would take him to the dr that Monday. Well, while we were in Dollywood he slipped and fell in the bathroom and came down hard on his right knee. He cried just a little but he started limping again..so I thought he had just reinjured that leg. I decided to give it a few more days before taking him to the pediatrician. The week of Christmas came on and Christmas night he was cleaning up toys and once again slipped on a toy and fell on his right knee. That night when I put him to bed after about 15 minutes he started crying. I went to check on him and he kept crying saying "my weg hurts my weg huuurrrrts". My heart sort of sank because I just didn't think it was normal. I gave him some motrin, the pain subsided, and on Friday morning I called the dr's office. After talking with the nurse she felt like he was just reinjuring the leg and for me to bring him in to the office in a few days if it wasn't better. Saturday morning Dalton woke up with the croup. Our pediatrician was open so I took him in. When the nurse called us back she said "Dalton, why are you limping?" He just sort of shrugged and I said that I had thought about mentioning it to the ped that morning that I had called about it the previous day. She noted it on the chart and when Dalton's ped came in the room she seemed more than just a little concerned with his leg. She said that lots of things caused leg pain...but not many caused limping. One thing that she said was the in children leukemia can present as leg pain or it could be some kind of hip disorder. She laid him flat back and checked out his legs...The left leg did fine but when she tried to rotate his right hip out you could tell it hurt, even though he shook his head and told her no that it didn't. She said she honestly felt like it was something in his hip. We were sent to OMC to have blood work...she ordered a complete blood count, a sedementation rate and a rheumatoid factor. The CBC was normal other than his white count being a little elevated from the croup. His sed rate was normal. The rheumatoid factor takes 4 or 5 days to process..but we don't expect anything to come of it. She also ordered a hip xray. Dalton was such a brave boy...he was so nervous but didn't cry at all when they did his blood work or xray. The xray tech was so kind and even let us go to the back to see Dalton's "bone" as he calls it. We asked her if she saw anything that looked off and she said that she didn't do many pediatric xrays so nothing really jumped out..but I thought something looked a little odd...It looked like there was nothing connecting his leg bone to the hip area. The ped called me within half an hour to say that the radiologist said it's LCPD. She said that the ball and socket should be nice and round and his ball is completely flattened. We will be referred to a pediatric orthopedic dr for further testing and treatment options. As it stands, his leg is in greater danger of breaking because there is no blood flow to his hip socket..which makes his leg brittle. Even turning an ankle could break it. Also, he's in danger of the hip popping out of socket since the ball is not there to stay in. Honestly, at this point I do not know what we are facing. Depending on the age of the child and the severity it can vary from wait and see (which I personally don't think will happen since his ball is already flat), bedrest and traction, casts, braces, surgery, and/or therapy and a combination of some of these things. The hope is to have good mobility of the hip and for the bone to regrow and reshape. He's at great risk of having to have a hip replacement early in life (by around age 50) and also of developing crippling arthritis in the hip. Needless to say, we are devastated. I know that it's just temporary...the braces and all...but as a mother the thoughts of watching him stand at the door seeing Hunter jump on the trampoline (yes, their Christmas present this year...what a cruel twist of fate), or ride his bike, or run and shoot ball...it just kills me.

Being the "google-whiz" that I am I have found tons of resources on LCPD and here is a little bit about the disease.

It occurs in 1 in 1200 children, primarily white boys between the ages of 4 and 8. (Yeah, that's us.)

Instead of me trying to type it all up..HERE is a great link that explains it all as well as treatment options.

Please keep us in your prayers as we see the doctor (fingers crossed for this week) and get this all sorted out.