The Petraske Project: 2013

Jake is doing great! He has such a positive attitude and adventurous spirit! I thank God for Jake's positive attitude every day!!

We are over 6 months out from Jake's SUPER HIP 2 surgery in early August. Jake still has a SPICA cast on his hip and right leg. He is non-weight bearing and has to use a walker to get around. We recently had an x-ray to see if his hip was strong enough for weight bearing and if he could take his SPICA cast off. Unfortunately Dr. Paley said he still needs some more healing in his hip and to keep the cast on for 6 more weeks and then we can start Physical Therapy. This puts us at about Easter time :)

Above is a video of Jake moving around in his walker. Thanks again for all the prayers and support. Please pray for bone healing in Jake’s hip and that the SUPER HIP surgery was a success! Thanks!

This shoe lift and AFO (ankle foot orthotic) are waiting for Jake when he can be weight bearing agian :)

xoxo

Well, its been almost 6 months since we started the journey to fix Jake's hip. What an eventful time it has been! Including the fixator placement, Jake has undergone 3 surgeries in 5 months. He also had to get a PICC line placed for antibiotic infusions for reoccurring infections (so 4 surgeries if you count the picc line placement under "conscious sedation"). The surgeries include: 8/2012- Surgery to reconstruct Jake's right hip, new femoral head and femoral neck creation, several screw and pin placements as well.

11/2012- Jake was hospitalized for reoccurring infections in his pin sites which turned out to be MRSA, a PICC line was placed (a central line catheter surgically placed in his left upper arm and rested in his superior vena cava). We had to hook up an antibiotic infusion daily which he was very good about. The only really tough part about the PICC line was the dressing changes once a week with a huge sticky band aid which HURT!! :(

12/4/2012 Jake's fixator was removed, Dr. Paley was unsure if the femoral neck and head connection was completely healed and working as a unit, so Jake was placed in a SPICA cast to continue to allow the new hip to mend (Jake called the cast his "smooth fixator"). With the spica on, Jake has to be completely non-weight bearing on his right leg. We thought that meant no mobility for Jake, we envisioned pushing him in a stroller everywhere and carrying him to places he wanted to go. But not for Jake! He uses his walker and hops along on his left leg never putting his right leg down to bear any weight. He has also learned to arm crawl up stairs and to just hop around to get from place to place.

12/28/2012 We needed to go back to Fl for another surgery. This time Dr. Paley was unsure what he was going to do to stabilize Jake's hip until he was in surgery and could see what he was dealing with. We didn't know if Jake was going to need another Fixator placement (which we were really nervous about because it meant a longer recovery and pin cleanings).
But God answered our prayers and Dr. Paley decided to add two more screws to Jake's hip for stabilization, he added a bone growth factor to Jakes hip also. Jake was placed back in the SPICA cast for another 6 weeks (till about mid Feb, we hope). We have to send Dr. Paley an x-ray electronically and find out what he wants us to do from there.
Please continue to pray for Jakes hip. Pray for healing and success of the reconstruction. Thank you so much to all our family and friends for your continued love and support!!