Many know that Kadence was “adopted” by the Shriner organization last fall. Since then she has been up to the
Shriner’s Hospital in Salt Lake City twice. When we went the first time in January, 2018 we met her surgeon and had her initial assessment. At that time, after consulting his colleagues around the country he said that we should wait to do anything until she grows a bit more. That changed, however, when we went in July, 2018. This time we were told that the curvature had increased from 66% to 82%. The risk is that her spine will collapse even more putting her at risk of
Thoracic Insufficiency Syndrome. The time has come to pursue surgical intervention.
The tentative plan is that she will start with 4-6 weeks of
Halo Traction which will hopefully help straighten some of her curvature. This will be followed by insertion of either expandable
Veptr rods or
Magnetic Rods to stabilize her spine. The rods will stay in until she has reached skeletal maturity at which time they will be taken out and she will perhaps have the malformed vertebrae fused. All of this will be done in hospital in Salt Lake City – first Shriner’s and then Primary Childrens.
Right now, however, we wait….and try not to obsess over how we are going to manage all of this. We need to get a CT and MRI before going back to Salt Lake City to meet with the surgeon and schedule the surgeries.
We are afraid, of course, but mostly we are so grateful to the Shriner organization who are providing for all of her care, to our family and friends who have offered support and encouragement and mostly to God who always provides
Please be sure to include Jayden in your thoughts and prayers. He adores his little sister and it is pretty hard for a nine year old to wrap his mind around the fact that his little sister is going under the knife.