He was about 17 months old and I mean one day he was a healthy, happy toddler and the
next day he was kind of limping
It became clear to me the next – day after that, um, you know when he wasn’t walking
and he wasn’t using that leg that something was definitely wrong
Unfortunately Jaysen, when he was a baby, suffered an infection in his spine and it
permanently damaged the right side of his lower extremities, his right leg.
it not only affected the length, but it also affected the girth, the muscle mass, the function
of the leg in general
He’s worn a brace his whole life as well as lifts – basically big blocks in his shoes
so that he’d have even heights
When we went to gym classes, we had to run around the thing for 6 minutes and I always
was slower than the other kids
The difference in his legs is 6.5 centimeters, or closer to 3 inches
The original orthopedic doctor that we were seeing referred us to Dr. Ruggles
Fortunately Jaysen had a very – was a very good candidate for the rod because of the
shape of his femur and what we needed – how much we needed to lengthen
We told Jaysen you’re going to feel like you’ve been asleep for two seconds and then
you’re back in your room with mom and dad.
We’re the ones who are going to have to wait, you know the four hours and it was a
very long four hours
The idea is that they put this rod through your bone, in Jaysen’s case it’s his femur
bone, and there are opposing magnets in the rod that will push apart to cause the rod
to expand and then there’s a magnet device, almost like a remote control, that you set
on top of the leg and when it’s turned on, it activates those opposing magnets to lengthen
The first advantage of the internal nail is not having to use an external fixator Which
immediately cuts down on our risk of complications significantly.
It’s typically a painless process for the patient to lengthen their limb, um it’s
very easy, very user-friendly.
We've found quicker rehabilitation in these patients and patient satisfaction is certainly
a lot higher
Jaysen’s surgery went wonderfully and within a week was doing physical therapy and we started
lengthening and he’s done wonderfully along the way
The process the patient goes through typically is to lengthen the bone one millimeter a day
Jaysen had 40 millimeters or 4 centimeters of lengthening so it took him 40 days to complete
his lengthening phase
They’re also doing measurements to see how far he’s able to bend his knee, how far
he’s able to rotate his hip, bend his ankle, just different things like that and then the
first part of therapy is just to keep his muscles and his ligaments loose because as
the bone’s lengthening, so are the muscles and ligaments
Jaysen uh will have a continued leg length discrepancy as he grows older and we may opt
to do a second lengthening of his tibia bone or we may do a different surgery to slow down
the growth on his other leg
I want to play football and like go tubing and swimming and get back into basketball
and play soccer
The surgery has just opened so many doors for him for his future I mean it really is
a life-changing surgery