Prognosis good for Buckley girl
Published 12:35 pm Thursday, December 11, 2008
By Casey Steiner
The Courier-Herald
Once told she may never walk normally again as a result of a fight with Perthes disease, Buckley 8-year-old Chayce Curry has dreams of dancing after the early prognosis of a Jan. 25 distraction procedure was deemed a success.
Affecting one in 25,000 girls, Perthes is a rare childhood disease that occurs when the blood flow to the head of the femur (the bone between the knee and hip) ceases and the bone begins to die. The body goes through its natural repair process, but regrows the head of the bone in a deformed state. This deformity creates a non-spherical femoral head inside of a spherical socket and ultimately leads to the body's weight and muscle forces crushing the dying bone.
Denied and labeled "experimental" five weeks ago, the procedure was performed at the Rubin Institute in Baltimore, Md., after receiving delayed approval from the Washington state Medicaid provider. The procedure earned its label largely because of the unknown. Just more than 50 distraction procedures have ever been performed in the United States - all by doctors at the Rubin Institute.
As a result of her dying femur, Curry's left leg is an inch-and-a-half shorter than her right and, as Dr. Shawn Standard found out during the surgery, could have become much worse if the procedure was postponed any longer. During the procedure Curry's femur was found almost completely out of the hip socket and fractured down the middle - both developed during the two-week delay for Medicaid approval.
Standard attached a 10-pound external fixator to Curry's hip. The device pulls apart the hip at a rate of one millimeter per day, taking pressure off the femoral head and allowing the hip socket to, with time, take its natural form. The process is painful and runs the risk of infection to both the bone and the blood, but doctors at the Rubin Institute have enjoyed a 95 percent success rate in similar cases.
Curry developed an infection early on after the procedure and had to be readmitted to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics for 72 hours, but has fought through the complication and is now recovering well at the Ronald McDonald house in Baltimore. She will likely stay in Baltimore with her mother for at least the next few months.
She has physical therapy five days per week, two hours per day in what is being called "land therapy" and "water therapy." For the time being a walker is needed to get from her bed to the bathroom and a wheel chair is used for any other commute. Within six months Curry should be walking again - something that could not be promised without the surgery.
On Jan. 20 a fund raiser in Curry's name was held at the Buckley Eagles. A standing room only crowd raised more than $10,000 to help the Curry family cover out-of-pocket expenses totaling more than $50,000. The Curry family has extended an overwhelming thank you to the community and Mountain Meadow Elementary for their support and states, "we won't forget it."
Casey Steiner can be reached at csteiner@cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/courierherald.
