Kelty was born with bilateral hip dysplasia. Both of her hips were dislocatable and unstable in the sockets. In fact, she actually had no sockets. We are headed into surgery #8 (with #9 around the holidays) in an effort to give our girl some pain relief.
Here is an article about hip dysplasia that gives a simple explanation of what it is and treatments. Kelty is an extreme case (her doctors chat across the country with other orthopedic specialists about her) and had her first surgery (an open reduction) at 8 weeks old. Surgeries 2 - 4 were done prior to her 2nd birthday, more open reductions. Surgeries 5 - 7 were osteotomies (both hips have been opened up repeatedly), the procedure described here. Here last surgery was in 3rd grade (2006). At this point, she is in chronic pain and it is impacting her daily life and all-around health. The surgery on Tuesday is actually a Reverse PAO, the procedure mentioned at the very end of the article.
Why no hip replacements, you ask? Kelty is only 15 and fake hips are good for 15 years or so. You can do the math and see why we need to put that off as long as possible. In the meantime, we pray for "lifetime" hips to be an option some day.