>> Bobby had a skiing injury when he was about seven or eight and broke his leg.
>> Yeah, I was skiing with my dad.
I was just going down and he caught up to me and he like hit over me and I did
like a summersault and my leg went a weird way.
>> Bobby had undergone a growth arrest.
He had fractured his distal femur, which is the end part
of the femur above the knee and it was fixed.
But the growth plate was damaged in the process.
Unfortunately if it happens when a child is young,
it can lead to a very significant limb deformity.
The distal femur, the one above the knee is the most important contributor to length.
If a child, at the age or seven or eight, sustains a significant damage
to that growth plate that can make a big difference
in their ultimate leg length discrepancy.
Not only do you get shortening of the leg, but you also get a deformity of the leg
because one side will grow faster than the other.
[ Music ]
What also made Bobby unique is that he was recovering
and being treated for cancer at the same time.
>> He had just finished cancer treatment, so for him to break his leg and then have
such a huge break and such unlucky -- you know, to be so unlucky like that,
we really felt terrible because we thought, "Oh man, what more?
He's seven, eight years old."
So another doctor, you know a whole another procedure.
>> That became a challenge in terms of trying to time surgery,
trying to figure out if surgery was going to be the right thing to do given the fact
that he was undergoing chemotherapy at the same time.
And I worked very closely with his oncologist and with his mom who is fabulous.
Super organized, super motivated.
>> You know this thing, when I saw this when we first came
to the doctor's office I thought, "Oh my god this poor kid.
This isn't just a cast."
And we saw a kid, remember we saw that kid in the waiting room?
>> Yeah.
>> And Bobby was really worried that it was really going to hurt because at
that age especially it looked really painful.
But when we saw that kid in the waiting room he was just sitting
in a wheelchair doing his homework and I kept saying, "See he's not even --
obviously it doesn't hurt right now, you know."
So he realized that it might hurt in the beginning but then it wasn't going
to be an ongoing, you know hurting all the time.
And then when we came into Dr. Rozbruch, when we first met him,
he right away said," I know it looks terrible.
My god, I know.
But don't worry.
It's not going to hurt.
We'll take care of you."
And he really treated Bobby as the patient, not me as the patient.
He went right to Bobby, which was really good and important to him because he'd seen
so many doctors over the years,
he needed someone that was going to treat him like the patient.
>> Kids are people.
When I'm trying to bond with a kid it's pretty intuitive,
you just treat them like, you treat them with respect.
You treat them like a person.
You don't talk over them.
You talk at their level and you keep them informed.
They like to know what's going on.
They like to be involved.
You be reassuring.
Joke around with them.
Make sure they know that I've got kids and that I understand the deal.
And I feel like I do.
>> Well, when I saw him he was like really nice
and he would take all the jokes because he had kids of his own.
So he got me and like whenever like no one would really understand,
he just like knew what I was talking about and he would like try to do something about it.
>> I did an osteotomy of his femur and we lengthened and straightened his femur,
what ended up being about eight centimeters, which is about three and a half inches.
And at that time I was able to straighten his leg.
He had a valgus, or a knock-knee deformity, plus three and a half inches of shortening.
And so I straightened his leg, I lengthened his leg and I got him back to his equal leg lengths.
He thrived during the process.
He's just a great kid.
Very energetic and has an inner strength that is remarkable because he has dealt
with in his young life more adversity than many people deal with in their entire lives.
And he does it with grace and with a lot of humor and with strength.
He has resumed all of his activities.
He plays football, he plays lacrosse and he's just completely engaged
in being a young boy and enjoying every moment of it.
The other thing about Bobby is that since he's still a young boy,
he is going to develop some additional leg length discrepancy.
And so at the end of the day, this is going to be, by the time he is fully grown he is going
to develop additional leg length discrepancy.
So there is going to need to be another surgery.
When all is said an done, you know he will have had about five inches of leg shortening
that is going to be corrected in two surgeries.
And I mean that's a huge difference in somebody's life, I mean to go through life
with a five-inch leg length discrepancy is tough.
It's tough physically, it's tough emotionally, but he's going to be a completely normal kid.
He is a normal kid.
All right let's see that leg of yours.
All right.
Let's see you bend your knee and straighten it out.
Bend it again.
That's great.
You got good motion in the knee.
Tighten up this muscle.
Good. Let's see, lift it up.
Good. Any pain?
>> No.
>> Awesome.
Let me see you stand up and now turn to your side.
Good. Now, turn your back to me.
So you know, he's a little low so they're going to pick up a little bit of scoliosis.
>> I'm messed up.
>> No, you're not.
>> Yeah, but you're cute.
>> Turn around.
You're a ham.
So yeah, we'll keep an eye on things.
>> Yeah.
>> All right buddy.
Hey listen, I got part ownership in that leg.
You take care of it.
>> Yeah, that's right.
>> Yeah, you wrote your name on it.
>> All right.
Oh that's the way you do it?
Then we do this.
>> High-five.
Oh no wait.
High-five.
>> Turkey.
>> Up-high.
Have it. Octopus.
Bye.
[ Music ]
>> Turkey.
>> No, no it's high-five.
>> High-five.
>> Turkey.
>> Why is this turkey?
>> Because it's turkey, you see?
>> Oh. All right.
Turkey. So let's do that one again.
High-five.
>> OK [laughing].
>> And then what was the third one?
>> Up-high.
>> Jump, jump.