Anna Already Earning Her Keep - Is It Too Early to Say "Supermodel"?

So, many of you may not know that Anna has already had her first "paying" modeling job. At the tender young age of -1 week, Jo and Anna posed for an advertisement for St. Anthony's Hospital. That ad has just now shown up on a billboard in Denver. If you are in the neighborhood, you can take a look for yourself at the corner of Speer and Federal.

On the Jo front, the NIH has said that we must wait until after Jo's 6 month checkup in August before we move forward on any type of hip surgery. So, for now, we wait.

The Little Girl Turns One and Mommy Gets a Hip Update

It has been an eventful week. Anna turned one over the weekend, and we had all of the neighborhood kids over for cake. Anna was more fascinated by all of her guests than she was by the cake. Our neighbors need to get busy making more babies so that Anna isn't always the youngest kid on the block. We actually have a few neighbors without kids, so I don't think Anna will be the youngest for long.

Last Thursday, Jo and I went to visit Dr. Cynthia Kelly. Dr. Kelly politely denied being the Colorado "expert", but she did admit that she does more work on patients with Avascular Necrosis than anybody else in Denver. I must admit that talking to her was much like talking to the doctors at the NIH. She was very precise with her thoughts and really left very little doubt in our minds as to what needed to be done.

The ball joints in Jo's hips have both "flattened" more in the past several months and there is a good chance that both hips will need to be replaced. Replacement is most probably the only choice on the right hip. Dr. Kelly mentioned that when she gets into the left hip and takes a look, it is possible that she would put a metal covering over the hip bone, which could buy several years before needing a total replacement. She said to think of this option the same way we might think about putting a cap on a tooth.

Both of Jo's knees also showed small pockets of Avascular Necrosis. Jo does have some discomfort in her knees that comes and goes, but nowhere near as bad as her hips. The next time we see Dr. Kelly, we will have to ask Dr. Kelly what she thinks will happen to Jo's knees.

Jo has sent an email off to Olga at the NIH, asking her to get official word from Dr. Young as to when we can pull the trigger on hip surgery. As soon as we hear from the NIH, I will let you all know.

Holding Steady

Jo's platelets are holding steady at about 53,000. Due to an eventful weekend, she did have red cell transfusions last Friday to get her energy levels up. Jo's red cell counts and her hemoglobin counts have been hovering just high enough to not need transfusions, but low enough that her energy levels are just not where they would normally be.

The next big event on the medical calendar is to meet again with an orthopedic surgeon to evaluate Jo's hips and propose a plan of action. Once the plan is agreed upon, we can press the NIH for approval on a timeframe.