Q’Shaun Story and his Blount’s disease
Lots of people at school ask me about the frame and if it hurt and I told them ‘no’,” said Q’Shaun. “If they ask why I had it on I told them ‘It was because my legs are bowed and need to be straightened.’ Most people were just curious because they had never seen anything like the frame.
Q’Shaun was diagnosed with Blount’s disease, a growth disorder of the lower leg bone that is characterized by a bowing appearance of the leg below the knee joint.
“He had a substantial bowing of both legs causing pain, deformity and this limited his activities,” said Dr. Christopher Iobst, Director, Center for Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction, Clinical Associate Professor, Orthopedic Surgery at The Ohio State University, College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
“The doctors we saw said to wait till he was older and stronger to try and correct his legs. It was hard to wait. He didn’t have friends; he was bullied because of his bowed legs. He missed out on a lot growing up,” said Carol, Q’Shaun’s mother. “He is a big kid, and he loves sports. Even with his legs, he was determined to play baseball and football. It was scary to see him run as it looked like his legs would just break because they were so twisted.”
After many years of struggling and waiting, it was finally time for Q’Shaun to have surgery to correct his legs.
“The doctors told us that if he didn’t have the surgery before he was 16 then he would be in a wheelchair,” said Carol. “That made the decision to have the correction done easy, there really wasn’t another option.”
“He had a large amount of deformity,” said Dr. Iobst. “This can be corrected gradually with the TL-Hex which is the safest method for bone healing and soft tissue healing.”
Carol was a little shocked when she first saw Q’Shaun after surgery. “It was scary at first to see it on his leg. I was very scared of tightening the system,” said Carol.