After we came home from he hospital

The day they released us from the hospital we didn't get released until after dark that day. It was snowing and so cold. We went to my Grandmothers house to pick up our oldest daughter Jessica, and to let my Grandmother and my Aunt see Kayla. I was so tired by the time we got home that I just wanted to go to bed and didn't get a chance to look at the x-rays. I don't remember if it was the next day or the day after that but I finally found a free moment to sit down and look at the x-rays. I put the x-ray disc into my computer and didn't really know what to expect because I am no expert on x-rays but the moment the x-rays popped up on the screen I could see the shortened Femur and Tibia right away. I then noticed that her Tibia was also bowed or crooked and I could not see a Fibula in that leg. I could see a Fibula in her right leg but not in her left, and this concerned me so on her next visit to the pediatrician I asked him if she had a Fibula and he assured me that she did have one. If I am not mistaken he went on to say it was probably the angle that the x-rays were taken in that were preventing us from seeing her Fibula. When he said that I looked at the x-rays again but the angle of the x-rays on her left leg were taken in the same angle as the x-rays on the right leg so I knew then that the Dr. was wrong. I decided instead of doing all of the guess work on weather she had a Fibula or not that I would just contact someone who would know for sure. I called the radiology department at the Hospital that took her x-rays and I asked the person on the phone if they could get the radiologist to look at her x-rays again and tell me if she had a Fibula or not. Later that day I got a call back from the radiology department and they said that the radiologist confirmed that Kayla had a congenital absence of the Fibula and had NO Fibula at all. I could not believe what I was hearing and I just began to cry. What did this mean for my child? Would she be able to walk without a Fibula? With these questions in mind I decided to search the internet for answers. I typed in the question, can children without a Fibula walk, not really expecting to find much. But Much to my surprise there was tons of information about children born without a Fibula and they called this birth defect Fibular Hemimelia. Fibular Hemimelia is basically defined as a congenital absence of the Fibula sometimes the fibula is only partially there. Along with the absence of the Fibula additional conditions may be present such as leg length discrepancies, bowed Tibia's and deformed ankles. The more I read about Fibular Hemimelia the more convinced I became that Kayla had this. At Kayla's next appointment with the pediatrician I told him about my research and I asked him if he thought that Kayla had Fibular Hemimelia and he told me that he had never heard of Fibular Hemimelia before. He said that he would have to research it before he could tell me if Kayla had it or not. Later on that week I had never heard from the pediatrician so I called him myself. He then informed me that Kayla did have Fibular Hemimelia.

Our Newborn Daughter

On March 1, 2010, our daughter, Kayla Adrianna Brewer, was born via C-Section. Kayla weighed 7 pounds and 5 ounces and was 22 and 1/4 inches long. It was a very happy day. The morning Kayla was born the pediatrician came to see her for her newborn evaluation and what he found shocked both my husband and I. He informed us that Kayla's left leg was shorter than her right leg and he wanted to send her for x -rays to rule out Hip Dysplasia. If I remember correctly the Dr. didn't come back in to see us until the next day, leaving us with a whole day of worry that seemed like an eternity. When he finally came back in, he told us that the x-rays ruled out hip dysplasia but he found that she had a congenital birth defect. Her Femur and Tibia in her left leg were both 1 centimeter shorter than the Femur and Tibia in her right leg leaving her with a 2 centimeter leg length discrepancy. He went on to tell us that he had seen this kind of thing before and when she got older and at walking age she would have to have a shoe lift to compensate for the leg length discrepancy and this was nothing to worry about, and even though he said that it was nothing to worry about we were still devastated. After being told about the birth defect, Mike and I looked at her little leg to see if we could make any sense of what was happening and what we were told. While looking at her leg we noticed that not only was her little leg shorter but her ankle also had something wrong with it. It just did not look like the other ankle did and my gut feeling was that she had more wrong with her little leg than what the Dr. was realizing so the day we were supposed to be released from the hospital I called the x-ray department and had them to make me a copy of her x-rays and I sent Mike after them because I wanted to see them for myself.