Every six months my youngest daughter is seen by her pediatric orthopedic doctor to evaluate her bone tumors. 14 months ago my then 3 year old had just broken her arm. One day in the car I turned around and noticed a large bump with no bruise on her inner right knee. A quick call to the pediatrician got us an appointment later that afternoon. We saw a sub ped and her first reaction was "wow I have no idea what that is wow". So reassuring to a mom who is thinking a cancerous lump has grown overnight on her baby's knee. She orders blood work and an x ray. So we are off to radiology and then lab. At 5pm that night we get "the call". I must admit that until the doctor called I think I was holding my breath. Her first words were that she was 99% sure they knew what we were dealing with. Her diagnosis was osteo chondroma. A benign bone tumor. She referred us out to a pediatric orthopedic, the same one treating her broken arm. Turns out it wasn't just an osteo chondroma but multiple osteo chondroma or Multiple Hereditary Exostosis (although the hereditary part mystifies us). Over her bones my little girl has about 16 of these tumors. Our biggest concern is over the original one found in her knee, after a MRI it was found to be attached to the growth plate making surgical removal too risky. There are 6 tumors in her right knee. The original and biggest is causing her hamstring to "twang" over it every time she moves her knee. At her last appointment in July I had noticed she was pronating her right foot. Upon examination it was found that she was indeed pronating, probably to ease the discomfort of the bothered hamstring. But we are ordering additional x rays of her hips to rule out those tumors causing the pronation. So here we are 14 months post diagnosis. She has visited the ortho every 6 months, undergone numerous x rays including a full body set of x rays, and a sedated mri of the right knee. We shall see if the tumor has slid off the growth plate. X rays will determine that as well as whether or not the hip tumors are causing rotation of the leg. Update on Tuesday.
