Haley Jenkins

My name is Haley Jenkins. I’m 28-years-old and I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Metabolic Bone Disease and a few other conditions that often come along with those. When I was 12-years-old in junior high school before we knew I had these conditions, I broke my right femur playing basketball. I planted my foot to pivot and I’ll never forget the pain that I felt when it took me to the gym floor. I saw a pediatric orthopedic specialist here at home, in Michigan, and he put me in a brace and wheelchair. His plan didn’t work and I was in a wheelchair for the rest of my junior high years and in so much pain that I couldn’t keep up with my friends. My parents took me to a facility in Ann Arbor for a second opinion and that’s when I learned that my leg hadn’t healed properly and I would need surgery to correct it. I had the surgery for valgus deformity and started physical therapy, but the pain never improved and it continued to get worse and started to impact my hips and spine. Despite years of follow up with the team, I was still not walking on my own and needed my wheelchair. My mom turned to the internet and searched the words musculoskeletal deformity and that’s when we learned about HSS. My life changed because of that Google search.

We started with Dr. Alberto Carli, who reviewed my case and took lots of images of his own and told me he wasn’t “my guy” and that the surgery I had done had failed. It felt like a punch to the gut learning that after all I had been through, I still had made no progress after nearly 6 years from the original fracture. Dr. Carli and his amazing staff (Lilly) knew we were from out of state and immediately went to work to get me on the fast track to see Dr. Rozbruch. My life changed when I met this team. For the first time since junior high, I had hope. Hope that one day I would walk again on my own. Dr. Rozbruch went over my x-rays and outlined his plan for me for the future to get me Back in the Game. It was a detailed plan that would be done in separate surgeries over the course of several years and it wouldn’t be easy, but he assured me he and his team would get me back on my feet walking my dogs. Because for patients like me, it wasn’t about getting back on a court or field, or back into rigorous training. It was about being able to live without being in constant, nauseating pain. I just wanted to be able to sleep, to sit in any style of chair, to just maybe be able to push a cart in the grocery store. And possibly, keep up with other people my own age.

I’m writing this today to announce I’m doing all of that! I am Back in the Game. My game is my life! And I’m back in it because of Dr. Rozbruch and all of the amazing staff at HSS. I will never be without HSS again. I know that I have found my musculoskeletal family. They live at HSS. They live and breathe to help patients like me. And they’re changing the world. I am blessed because of them and I have hope now for the future and whatever it may bring.