Before Sherilyn came along, Alycia was indeed very very precious to me. I’m not saying she’s not precious to me anymore now but being the only child then and an extremely hard-to-get precious baby, I was really very ‘kan cheong’ (overly anxious) over her then. Even a body temp of 37.5 degrees Celcius then would sent DH and I rushing Alycia to the paed, only to be sarcastically told off as being overly anxious parents by the paed.
During Alycia’s 5th month well-child check up and immunization, our paed discovered that there were some ‘clicky sounds’ from both her hips. He then suspected hip dysplasia or dislocatable hips on both her hips. He then referred us to have Alycia checked by an orthopaedic. Upon doing an ultrasound scan of Alycia’s hips and performing a few tests on her hips, the orthopaedic confirmed that Alycia indeed has dislocatable hips and a shallow hip socket. I was frozen with shock and disbelief and was dazed at the orthopaedics clinic as the dr. explained Aly’s condition to DH and I, treatments available and showed me the human bone anatomy. When I heard that diagnosis, I felt my life and happiness were beginning to crumble to an abrupt end. Oh God, what’s going to happen to my precious beautiful Alycia? Is she going to be cacat or hobble in future? What would the future behold her if she really can’t walk normally? All these morbid thoughts came flashing thru my mind as I was seated at the clinic that I wasn’t even listening to what the dr was saying. My mind just went blank. For the next 4 months, I again surfed thru the net to study Aly’s condition. The diagnosis, prognosis and pictures shown on the net weren’t too encouraging and I was really depressed. All I could do was just to pray to the Lord.
The dr. suggested that we try a non-invasive, non-medical method of treating Alycia first. Since she’s only 5 mths old and her bones are still soft and not fully developed yet, there is still hope of ‘intervening’ the formation of the bones. Alycia has to be put on double diapers for 4 months and carried & put to sleep in certain positions in the hope of pushing the hips back to the socket. We spent lots of money on diapers for the 4 months, not to mention Alycia felt very unconfortable and hot in double layer of diapers 24 hours a day for 4 months.
4 months later, a scan and x-ray revealed that Alycia’s hips were symetrical and perfectly in place. When the dr said “I can now confirm that your daughter is ok and does not need to see me again”, I almost wanted to scream. That was another happiest day of my life. Thank God, my prayer had been answered again, it was trully a miracle.
So to all parents whose babies have some kind of imperfections or another, do not give up hope. Pray and miracles do happen.
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