More Knee Troubles--Annie's Orthopedic Knee Appointment

We saw Annie's orthopedic knee doctor today for her supposedly last post-op appointment from her surgery in December to correct her painfully dislocating knee cap.  Little did the doctor know that we'd be coming today to tell him that her knee cap is dislocating again.  They did x-rays which showed everything to look good and in place (unless she bends her knee) but the groove that her knee cap sits in is so shallow that it is easily coming out. 

Because of the shallow groove and the fact that she regularly has hard seizures that yank her knee cap out of place, the doctor is suggesting two options: we can redo her previous procedure with a new tendon graft that will hopefully be strong enough to counteract her strong muscles during a seizure, or we can completely remove her patella.  Justin and I don't feel like repeating the same procedure again would be beneficial or be any more successful the second time around, simply because of factors we can't control (shallow groove and seizures).  So for now, we are planning on her having a patellectomy.  But before the doctor would schedule her for surgery, he wants to do an MRI next Monday to get a better idea of why the tendon graft failed.  We'll then meet with him on Wednesday to go over the MRI results and talk more about surgery.

From what he has already told us, the patellectomy will have a comparable recovery to her previous knee surgery--about a 3 month recovery period with her leg in a straight leg immobilizing knee brace for about 6-8 weeks or so.  Removing her patella will cause a slight loss of power to her lower leg, but since she doesn't ambulate that shouldn't be a problem.  She will however, always require a knee brace while standing in her stander.  The procedure will completely remove her knee cap, and then will require that the tendons connecting her upper and lower leg to the knee cap be connected to each other over the space where the knee cap normally is.  This is why she will need to have her leg out straight and immobilized for so long after surgery--bending her leg before those sewn-together tendons have healed could stretch then too much and cause them to rupture.  So we're in for another long and cumbersome recovery.  We're hoping to get her in to surgery as soon as possible to help her get fully recovered before the summer months come.

I feel so overwhelmed to be still dealing with knee problems--having one surgery fail and needing to start all over.  It's been about one year since her knee troubles first started... Last spring we noticed that Annie's knee was becoming very difficult to bend and would pop whenever we bent it.  Then over the summer months it started hurting her every time we bent her knee.  Then finally last August her knee cap became locked out of place and we had to take her to the ER to get it put back in place.  That is when we realized that all the popping we'd been hearing and the pain she'd been having was due to her knee cap dislocating.  I still can't believe we didn't somehow figure it out sooner.  However, she didn't have surgery on it right away last fall because she was having terrible sleep apnea and the surgeons wouldn't operate on her until after she had her tonsillectomy.  She had that done in October, and then we had to wait 8 weeks for her throat to heal before she could be intubated again.  She then had her first knee surgery in December and today's appointment was supposed to be her last follow-up.

I just want Annie to be happy and comfortable.  It's been such a difficult year for her--spending a lot of time recovering from surgeries, having to wear a knee brace every day, and experiencing a lot of pain.  I long for the days when I can just pick her up and not worry about hurting her or throwing her knee cap out of place.  It's been difficult if not impossible to hold her on my lap without her knee cap dislocating or making her uncomfortable, and I can't wait to be able to move her and hold her more easily again.  She is such a little trooper going through everything she goes through.  We love her so much and can't wait to get these next few months behind us and hopefully have a much happier Annie soon!