“What a day,” the surgeon said. His eyes crinkled. In silent shared knowledge, we agreed. Over the last 12 hours, our relationship had developed into something new, less formal.
“He’s not awake yet but you can go through,” he told us. “And don’t throw up when you see how far apart his legs are.”
He chuckled at this last line. Orthopaedic humour. I smiled in politeness. I got the joke. Bones and joints have always been a part of my life.
A new kind of fear snatched my hand when I had my babies. The kind that told me I could never be the mother they needed. My arthritic body wouldn’t cope. In the post-night feed darkness, swirling taunts added another suffocating weight of unease. My babies might be broken... like me.
Dozens of doctors, specialists and radiologists checked them both. First my daughter, then my son. Check their hips. Check them again. Are you sure they’ve formed properly? Are you sure they’re okay?
You see, I was missed. Misdiagnosed.
My first mobility milestone came with a limp. My mother, unable to convince the doctor it was not just the way I walked, sought a second opinion.
Emma Rennison Source: Credit: Jessica Roberts
Within a week I was in surgery. My tiny toddler bones were cut and screwed back together to try and force my hips into their sockets, where they belonged.
My left hip joint was non-existent. Tendons were snipped, bone grafts taken, sockets reconstructed. Legs strung up, splints applied; and plasters set. I remember Mum perched on the rough cotton sheets of my hospital cot. She pointed to the green stems of the spring flowers struggling through the frost-hardened grounds: “You’ll be home and fixed by the time the daffodils come out.”
Emma Rennison (aged 20 months) with mum Sally Pearshouse (aged 25) taken outside the ward at Treloars Hospital in Hampshire, UK, 1979. Source: Supplied
Each year, they burst through. Each year I was not fixed.
We followed the nurse to my son’s private room. My legs threatened to give way as she opened the door. The bed contraption, as familiar as if I’d been in it yesterday, loomed over us. Sorrow and guilt twisted inside me like strands of DNA.
Emma Rennison (aged 20 months) in traction, with mum Sally Pearshouse (aged 25), at the Lord Mayor Treloar Orthopaedic Hospital in Hampshire, UK, 1979. Source: Supplied
I fought for every test and x-ray, aware of the meaning of a second opinion. Comments made me feel I was wasting time. But somehow we still found our way here.
Perthes disease. Bilateral. It’s when the blood supply stops in the hip and the ball joints waste away. The bone will grow back, but we don’t know when or how. He can’t walk. Any impact from running to simply standing will damage the hip further. There’s a chance it might not be Perthes. It might be something worse. Something that affects every joint. Multiple epiphyseal dysplasia. We won’t know until he’s older.
His teddies lined the end of the bed. Our toothbrushes, one small, one big, rested on the shelf above the bathroom sink.
He was four. I was broken.
On the morning of my son’s procedure, my husband brought our daughter. Her shoulders weren’t symmetrical. Her left was in position, hanging comfortably next to her spine. Her right stuck out too far and made her back contort when she leaned forwards. The curve in her spine flashed up on the radiologist’s screen and screamed out at me like a banshee. I knew the verdict even before she’d seen the expert. Scoliosis.
Emma Rennison’s son (aged four) in slings and springs in Cabrini Hospital, Melbourne, 2017. Source: Supplied
I felt her soft seven-year-old body next to mine. Soon a hard-plastic barrier enveloping her torso would come between us. I tried to swallow before I spoke to her: “How exciting! A back brace made especially for you.” Through the strands of her long dark hair, I held my husband’s pained gaze as we silently questioned each other.
We followed our consultant into the recovery area. He now held the future of both our babies in his hands. I’d always spoken with fondness of my childhood specialist. I felt more than a hospital number. The last time our paths crossed, I stopped to thank him for all his care over the years. He accepted my gratitude without a flash of recognition. I felt rejected, broken-hearted. I hope this one won’t forget us.
Emma Rennison’s daughter (aged seven) collecting her first Boston back brace in Melbourne, 2017. Source: Supplied
The winter I turned 36, I had a hip replacement. Rules dictated my babies could not visit. The energy of a three and one-year-old would disturb the older patients. I challenged myself every day. Determined to get better, stronger, to be the mother my babies needed. Bundled in my quilted coat, I tested the slippery wet ground with the rubber ends of my crutches before each step as I did slow circuits of the winter garden. My body tensed until I returned to the safety of stable dry floors that wouldn't smash me like a pile of fine china. 
I longed to protect my babies from a life of degenerating bones, pain, and immobility. Of hospitals, surgeries, and egotistical surgeons. No one understood the importance of knowing there was nothing wrong with my children.
Emma Rennison’s daughter (aged 11) in Melbourne, 2017. Source: Credit: Jessica Roberts
Our son was still asleep. His tiny legs bandaged from the tops of his thighs down to his ankles with thick pink fibreglass.
I stroked his beautiful little face. His eyelids flickered. He was in that wonderful lost space of anaesthesia. My heart hitched. The damage was done. The only part of my life I didn’t want to share with my babies belonged to them now too.
I closed my eyes and saw my daughter. Imagined her speckled blue irises as they blinked at me at bedtime. Opening them I saw my son suck in a deep breath and roll his head on his pillow as he stirred into wakefulness. The fear wanted to take me, but I shook my head. I wouldn’t let it. I leaned closer and whispered in his ear, hoping my little girl would hear me too.
Emma Rennison’s son (aged nine) preparing for a coin toss at the Australian Open, Melbourne, 2022. Source: Credit: Tennis Australia
“Mummy’s here. Mummy’s here.”
Emma Rennison is a British-Australian writer and mother of two children diagnosed with multiple epiphyseal dysplasia and scoliosis. She has one bionic hip and writes about her family’s experiences of disability, as well as short works of fiction. You can find her writing at and follow her on Instagram .
This article is an edited extract of an entry chosen from the 2021 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition.
