Margaret’s Story

Site created on January 8, 2013

Update: 5 years later. Maggie's story of temporary therapies has run it's course. After the VEPTRs failed, she has gone through 9 rounds of Halo traction and corresponding bracing. it has bought her 5 years of growth! 5 years of lung development, and height, and weight gain. Now however, after all this time, the risks of fusing her spine are out weighed by the risks of not doing it. This is where I'll post updates for her spinal fusion surgery.

I'm also going to leave the summary I wrote 5 years ago below:

Maggie was born with a rare form of progressive infantile Scoliosis. Her spinal curve was at 30 degrees at birth and has progressed to 90 degrees at 4 years old. She has gone through numerous torso casts and braces to try and reverse or stop the progression of her curve. These treatments have run their course, and we are now scheduled to undergo surgery to implant an extendable rod in her back to assist with curve management. This implant is called a VEPTR (more on the procedure in the Journal), and the surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, January 9th, 2013. Update: Maggie is now 5 and after 3 extension surgeries it obvious that the VEPTR are not working. Her curve is still around 90 degrees. We are back in the hospital now to remove her rods and move to an external traction strategy. I've set up this site to track Maggie's surgery and recovery. Check back for pictures and updates.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Ian Condie

Hey everyone, this will be my last update for Maggie's spinal fusion surgery log.  Things are still getting a little better every day.  She's walking more, eating (a little) more, and her attitude is coming back nicely (or not so nicely 😂).  I really wanted to thank everyone who followed along with the story, commented, texted, mailed letters, visited, or sent gifts.  It all helped Mags in great and small ways.  We have some thank you cards to send out but I'm afraid we might have forgotten some people in the hospital haze.

Thanks again to everyone who loves and cares for Mags.
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