Kienbock's Disease

I think I’ve told you before that my amazingly cool autistic son, the Dog Walker is trying to earn ALL the Merit Badges. It’s been a crazy ride for the last 6 years. We are down to only 7 left and he will pass off one more this afternoon. One of the most difficult ones for him has been Water Sports. We are not boat people. We have always enjoyed our fishing from the shore on nice stable ground. The kids have been boating several times with the neighbors and they all seem to love it! We have one particular neighbor who has been kind enough to take the kids out several times. He lets them go tubing and he has tried his best to teach the Dog Walker to water ski. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Dog Walker is a big kid. If he had learned to use the skis when he was 8, he probably wouldn’t have any trouble getting up on them…but trying to learn when you are 16 and 300 pounds is much more difficult.

To make things even worse, the Dog Walker suffers from something called Kienbock’s Disease. That means that one of the bones in his lower arm is longer than it should be, effectively choking off and killing one of the smaller bones in his wrist. We discovered this disorder when he was 16. He was just finishing up his last and most successful (by a long shot) season of pee-wee football. He had been playing Center and without any specific injury, his wrist started to hurt. We figured once football was over, that his wrist would return to normal, but it didn’t.

He complained of random pain all through November and December. In January, his church friends joined a basketball team and invited him to play. He agreed, but each week the pain got progressively worse. By the end of the basketball season, he could hardly dribble the ball. It was time to see a doctor…then a specialist. The diagnosis was made and after several weeks (so he could finish the Scuba Diving badge), they put him in a cast. Nothing was broken, but the cast would give it a couple of months to rest. Then hopefully the swelling would go down and we could avoid surgery that might not work. If the tiny bone collapsed, his wrists would have to be permanently fused. The problem with the surgery was that the doctor would have to go in and shorten that bone which may or may not solve the problem. And if he made a tiny mistake, the surgery could also force him to permanently fuse the wrist. None of the recommended procedures were guaranteed.

Picture Credit

The Dog Walker was born with the extra length in his bone and it was likely that the pushups from football made the problem flare up. The doctor recommended no more football. We were crushed! We all had high hopes of him playing on our amazing high school team. Instead he joined the Marching Band (but that’s a subject for a different post). He wore the cast for six weeks and then a partial cast for six more. When he finally took the cast off, his pain had mostly disappeared. Not that the disorder is gone. He may never be able to do pushups again and he has to be careful when he works out in the gym, but so far, so good.

Just yesterday he passed off one of the Merit Badges that we were particularly worried about, Climbing. They managed it in a climbing gym with the Gym Rat doing the belaying. Now the Dog Walker only has three physically challenging ones left, Backpacking, Water Sports, and Cycling. For Cycling, he is taking advantage of an inaugural program at the Miller Motorsports Park here in Utah. They are allowing cyclists who raise at least $150.00 for their charities to ride as many miles as they want on their 3-mile racetrack that is used for car races. The Dog Walker is so excited! The final requirement for the Cycling badge is a 50-miler! We are excited because he will be able to ride in a safe environment with many people around to act as his support team (since none of us are really capable of riding 50 miles with him).

If you would like to help him reach his goal of $150.00 before the race next Saturday, please click on this link. He is still some short, but hopeful. Any little amount will help. Pretend you can’t see my last name on his page…remember, we are still trying to be just a tiny bit incognito. Thanks!