The Radford Family attended a disappointing hospital appointment last week when they discovered their daughter’s operation hadn’t been successful.
The Morecambe family must now decide what actions to take next in order to help 11-year-old Tillie walk better and also to prevent her from potentially developing arthritis in the future.
Tillie has a frame fitted to her leg in September 2019 to lengthen it after the limb stopped growing following a procedure when she had to have when she 18-months-old.
In December 2019 she fell over while on crutches in the family kitchen and broke her recovering leg even further.
At the time, doctors worried that the fall might have impacted the operation – something that was confirmed in the latest hospital appointment.
In their YouTube Vlog, Sue Radford said she noticed that Tillie was walking ‘”a bit lopsided”.
The mum-of-22 explained to the consultant that she’s had a massive growth spurt and that the difference in her legs was “quite a bit now”.
In the vlog, they travelled down to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool to have the leg examined.
After the consultation, Sue told the vlog that “it wasn’t overly brilliant news” and that there was around a 3.5cm difference between each femur bone.
The consultant said Tillie’s leg "definitely looks damaged" adding that the bone "looks like it has stopped growing".
Sue explained: “He did a lot of tests where he measured Tillie’s feet lying down and the difference was quite a lot there.
“He got her to put her knees up – and he said it does look like the femur has stopped growing.”
Now, the family have to decide what steps to take next – some of which involve Tillie undergoing another operation.
They will be back at the hospital in six months time to figure out whether Tillie needs an operation now or if she has to wait until she is 14.
The operation itself sounds gruelling and involves breaking the leg in order for it to keep growing as it should.
There is also a procedure which is done internally and doesn’t require a frame to be fitted on the outside of the leg.
Sue explained: “It’s not as invasive and it’s a lot better than having an outside frame… it still takes as long, between 4-6 months and she will be on crutches.
“They have to break bones to get it to grow.”
“She’s also got a problem with the knee area because it’s quite deformed. If she doesn’t have anything done she risks getting arthritis quite badly in years to come.
“There’s a lot of things to consider but right now Tillie definitely doesn’t want that.”
Until then, a special shoe will be made to address the length difference in the legs.
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