Savannah had her six week check up with the surgeon today.
Pre-surgery Cobb Angle was 58*... more on this below. Her post surgery angle is 5*. Given the measurement is +/- 5*, I consider her spine straight. I could not see an angle on the film but it would be hard for anyone, especially someone not experienced in looking at these curves like myself, to see a small angle like that by eye. I can certainly believe he measured a 5* angle though.
She has little/no rotation or shoulder blade protrusion and what little is left of the latter will get even less as her muscles settle completely into their new position. That just blew me away.
I remarked that it is impossible now to know something is amiss with her if you weren't alerted to the fact that she had a a large angle with significant rotation. The surgeon said the instrumentation these days allows for very excellent de-rotation. I said I thought his spine artistry played a factor beyond the instrumentation. He said he didn't mind me calling him an artist. LOL.
The pre-surgery Cobb angle, 58*, surprised me. Here's her dates/curves:
25 Sep 07 - 29*
15 Jan 08 - 48*
24 Mar 08 - 58*
For the first interval, the curve moved 19 degree in 112 days or 0.17 degree/day.
For the second interval, the curve moved 10 degrees in 69 days or 0.15 degree/day.
Those are the same rates given the error bars at every point in this calculation.
I now understand why he said we couldn't wait. If we waited until school ended in mid-June, and if the curve continued to progress at that rate, she would be 71*(!) At that angle, I'm not sure she would have gotten the near-perfect correction that she did.
We had no time to waste as it turned out. I guess he knew it would continue to move at that rate when he said we couldn't wait.
I asked about the future and mentioned the comment from the HSS site that this was a "cure" for the short and middle term but it was unknown about the long term. He seemed to bristle at that and thought it would be good for longer than that as I understand his comments.
He said he will take her off all restrictions at 8 months. As advertised.
Pre-surgery Cobb Angle was 58*... more on this below. Her post surgery angle is 5*. Given the measurement is +/- 5*, I consider her spine straight. I could not see an angle on the film but it would be hard for anyone, especially someone not experienced in looking at these curves like myself, to see a small angle like that by eye. I can certainly believe he measured a 5* angle though.
She has little/no rotation or shoulder blade protrusion and what little is left of the latter will get even less as her muscles settle completely into their new position. That just blew me away.
I remarked that it is impossible now to know something is amiss with her if you weren't alerted to the fact that she had a a large angle with significant rotation. The surgeon said the instrumentation these days allows for very excellent de-rotation. I said I thought his spine artistry played a factor beyond the instrumentation. He said he didn't mind me calling him an artist. LOL.
The pre-surgery Cobb angle, 58*, surprised me. Here's her dates/curves:
25 Sep 07 - 29*
15 Jan 08 - 48*
24 Mar 08 - 58*
For the first interval, the curve moved 19 degree in 112 days or 0.17 degree/day.
For the second interval, the curve moved 10 degrees in 69 days or 0.15 degree/day.
Those are the same rates given the error bars at every point in this calculation.
I now understand why he said we couldn't wait. If we waited until school ended in mid-June, and if the curve continued to progress at that rate, she would be 71*(!) At that angle, I'm not sure she would have gotten the near-perfect correction that she did.
We had no time to waste as it turned out. I guess he knew it would continue to move at that rate when he said we couldn't wait.
I asked about the future and mentioned the comment from the HSS site that this was a "cure" for the short and middle term but it was unknown about the long term. He seemed to bristle at that and thought it would be good for longer than that as I understand his comments.
He said he will take her off all restrictions at 8 months. As advertised.
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