The Modified Ravitch Procedure: A Case Study

I always knew that I was different and that certain things about my body looked different. However, I never knew that one would cause major health and medical problems for me. When I started puberty in about 7th grade, my sternum started to change. It was deformed and went inwards instead of being flat. My family and I never thought it was a big deal. My brother, Connor, also had the deformity. We just thought it was odd that we both had it and nobody else in our family had it. As high school began, I started noticing symptoms. I received my first “F” on an assignment ever. I had failed the mandatory mile for my dance class. At the time I didn’t know it was a symptom.
In late 2014, Connor went to his doctor for his annual physical and came …show more content…
Palafox. He measured our Haller index by the CT scan. The Haller index is the ratio of the transverse diameter and the anteroposterior diameter. Normal is 2.5, severe is 3.2, Connor was a 3.85, and I was a 6.59. He recommended that we both have surgery during the summer of 2015. There were 2 different surgical approached we could choose from, the Nuss Procedure or the Modified Ravitch Procedure. The Nuss is very minimally invasive, but the deformity is more likely to return. Therefore, he high recommended that we do the Modified Ravitch procedure. My parents truly trusted him, so we chose the Modified Ravitch. He explained that it would be a very intense …show more content…
My mom had my glasses, so I had to wait until they let her see me to get them. It was really freaky during that time for me because I am almost legally blind without my contacts or glasses. I had no idea what was going on and I couldn’t move. Finally, my mom came and gave me my glasses then they wheeled me to the ICU. I had nurses checking on me every hour and my mom, dad, or grandma was with me 24/7. 2 days later, they moved me to my 2nd ICU room, which was a little bigger and had a bathroom. There were only 2 patients in this part of CHOC, so we basically had our very own nurse! 2 days after that, I went to my next room which was no longer a part of the ICU. 2 days later I went home. Every day, while I was in the hospital, my surgeon or anesthesiologist would come by and check on me to see how I was doing. I also had a physical therapist come 3 times to help me start to try walking again. On the day I went home, Angels Baseball players came. They gave me a box full of goodies and I had a picture taken with