A BOLTON family are sharing their story of how their little girl went from toddling down corridors to undergoing traumatic surgery so that she would ever be able to walk again.

Isabelle Mayo, from Horwich, was just learning to stand on her own two feet when she was stopped in her tracks.

Little did her parents know but Isabelle was walking with a completely dislocated hip.

Without realising it their two-year-old daughter had been living with a condition known as developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) since she was born.

Furthermore, Isabelle’s stage of DDH meant she faced a major operation to reconstruct the joint and four months in a cast to right her hip.

Mum Emily said: “She was hitting all her milestones, doing what she should be doing, when she should be doing it.

“When she was 14 months old I was at the hospital for an appointment and she was walking down the corridor and it kind of looked like she was limping and struggling to balance and kept falling over.

“As parents we had a feeling something wasn’t right but we had never heard of the condition so didn’t know what to look for.

“We went back to the doctors and were referred to an orthopaedic consultant at Breightmet Health Centre. We were in the room 10 minutes for an assessment and found she had dislocated hip. We were sent straight to the hospital for an X-ray to confirm it.

“Within a week we found out her left leg was completely dislocated. It was completely out of the socket.”

Approximately just one to two children in a thousand suffer from hip dysplasia where treatment is needed, according to the NHS.

DDH is a condition where the ‘ball and socket’ joint of the hips don’t properly form in babies and young children.

Even before the diagnosis, Emily, aged 26, and her husband Tom, aged 28, had to overcome quite a few health scares with their second born and little sister to five-year-old Jacob.

Just before her birth Isabelle was stuck in the breech position - where the baby sits in a feet first position in the womb.

After her birth, it was discovered Isabelle had a very mild form of club foot which could be treated and there were fears she had spina difida, but they were unfounded.

More months in and Isabelle was diagnosed with a lactose allergy, but above it all her parents had noticed something strange about her legs, believing one leg was longer than the other.

However, nothing was found until she was 14 months old.

After the sudden and shocking diagnosis, everything happened in a whirlwind for the family.

While Isabelle had not been in pain from the DDH, she had to undergo a four-hour operation to reconstruct her femur. On top of that, the operation at Royal Bolton Hospital saw her undergo a blood transfusion.

Emily explains: “It was scary, we were a bag of nerves. I’ve never seen my husband cry before, not even when our children were born, but he went with her down to theatre and when he came back he just crumbled.

“When she first came round she was screaming and hitting the cast, she didn’t know what was going on. How do you explain to a 20-month old child what they have been through? It is frustrating for her, she was already walking at 14 months and ended up in a cast at 20.”

This was just the beginning of Isabelle’s journey as they now had to adapt their life around their little girl and her cast.

On top of making sure she slept on her back and having to bath her beside the kitchen sink, the restrictive condition has meant they have had to seek out and buy specialist equipment including adapted highchair — known as a hip spica chair — buggy and car seat. It was a scary and costly prospect for the couple, with Emily studying full-time at the University of Bolton and Tom working as a locksmith.

Fortunately the family have found help from Emily’s grandmother Anita Edwards and in Steps — a national charity supporting those whose lives are affected by childhood lower limb conditions — which gave a grant for half the cost of the car seat and also providing emotional advice.

As a result, they are sharing their story in the hopes of alerting other parents to the warning signs of DDH. Emily added: “After diagnosis didn’t know what to do, we spoke to Steps and they were so helpful. If it hadn’t been for the charity we wouldn’t have known what to expect. It made us stronger. Something like this either breaks a relationship or makes it stronger. Isabelle gets about though, she has found a way. She is definitely a little soldier. We’ve come a long way and are through the worst. She has been a soldier in my eyes.”

“If I could swap our places I would, but I don’t have that option.

“The future is still in the dark, we’re told it’s not 100 per cent certain she may not need a full hip replacement in her 20s, but up to now she is happy and we are happy and can see it healing.”