Emerson's Scoliosis Journey

There were some scheduling issues and Emerson's first surgery is now June 22. 

Emerson's upcoming plan is: July 13th:   Surgery to remove the Magec rods and attach the Halo Traction. She will stay in the hospital for 6 weeks while the Halo Traction is attached. August 24th:  Surgery to remove the Halo Traction, one vertebrae removal and fusion, and Shilla rods inserted. She will stay for about 4 days after this surgery. If the hook on the bottom of her rod migrates all the way through, the plan will be the same, but it would happen immediately.  There is no way to tell when that will happen.  All we know is that is has moved more. We started the week with a virtual meeting.  Dr. Luhmann knew I would have questions 🙂  I had read his blog posted about both procedures multiple times, had joined a new halo Facebook support group and spent hours reading about others' experiences with these procedures.  Thank goodness for support groups! Her magec rod is maxed out.  He could try to lengthen it one more time in August, but he didn't sound ver

Emerson's original appointment was March 23rd, but that was rescheduled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Today they were only seeing certain patients and we were really glad she was part of that group.  Only one parent could bring her, so Dad had a road trip with Em day. They lengthen the rod 3mms.  The last xray showed the bottom hook had started to migrate through the bone on the bottom of her rod and this xray showed that it had migrated more since the last appointment. Dr. Luhmann said that we could go ahead with the next step or we could plan to lengthen one more time in August and if it migrates all the way through before then we would start the next step immediately.  The next step was not what we were expecting.  He does not want to switch the rods out for larger ones.  Instead he feels that doing Halo-gravity Traction for 6 weeks in the hospital and then a partial fusion and Shilla surgery would be the best choice for her. Here are links that explain both and his