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Updated: June 6, 2024 @ 11:34 pm
Bridget Alicna, 13, received the new treatment at Norton Children’s Hospital. June 6, 2024. (WDRB Photo)
Kelsey Floyd, whose daughter, Bridget Alicna, received the new treatment at Norton Children’s Hospital. June 6, 2024. (WDRB Photo)
Dr. Kent Walker placed screws in Bridget Alicna’s spine using the 7D Surgical Navigation System. June 6, 2024. (WDRB Photo)
Identical twins Bridget Alicna, left, and Lydia Alicna, right, are now the same height after Bridge’s spinal surgery.
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The technology helped her just in time.
The technology helped her just in time.
Bridget Alicna, 13, received the new treatment at Norton Children’s Hospital. June 6, 2024. (WDRB Photo)
Kelsey Floyd, whose daughter, Bridget Alicna, received the new treatment at Norton Children’s Hospital. June 6, 2024. (WDRB Photo)
Dr. Kent Walker placed screws in Bridget Alicna’s spine using the 7D Surgical Navigation System. June 6, 2024. (WDRB Photo)
Identical twins Bridget Alicna, left, and Lydia Alicna, right, are now the same height after Bridge’s spinal surgery.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) —Â It was difficult to tell identical twins Bridget and Lydia Alicna apart until they stand side by side.
Bridget, 13, is significantly shorter than her twin because of scoliosis, a diagnosis that later revealed a 68-degree curve in her spine. If left unfixed, it could lead to possible damage to her internal organs.
“My spine was little special, being all crooked and stuff,” Bridget said Thursday. “… My hips were uneven. It was a whole thing.”
Bridget and Lydia are avid dancers, and the scoliosis made Bridget’s passion much more difficult.
“They’re coming to you to say ‘Mommy fix me,'” said Kelsey Floyd, the girls’ mother. “And you can’t. There’s nothing you can do.”
But despite her condition, Bridget decided she wasn’t going to stop dancing. After a year of wearing a brace, it became clear it was time for surgery at Norton Children’s Hospital.
“I was almost relieved that we were just going to go ahead and get to the surgery, just get it over with,” Floyd said.
On Aug. 19, dressed in her Taylor Swift T-shirt and pants, Bridget was “ready for it,” the same day Swift released her newest album. The staff at Norton Children’s even played a song for her as the anesthesia set in and they wheeled her back.
“I think, as silly as it sounds, I think that it really took a lot of the anxiety away from her going because it gave her something to focus on,” Floyd said. “So thank you Taylor Swift, as weird as that is.”
From there, Dr. Kent Walker went to work, placing screws in Bridget’s spine using an advanced computer navigation technology that helps treat kids and teenagers with scoliosis and other spine deformities. The 7D Surgical Navigation System is designed to assist surgeons in the operating room, and Norton Children’s is the first pediatric hospital in Kentucky to use 7D.
The ability to fine-tune the placement up top meant Walker didn’t have to fuse the lower spine, a medical advancement that wouldn’t have been possible before this new technology.
“7D really helps you to put screws in the areas you may not have been able to,” Walker said Thursday. “Because she wants to be a dancer and she wants to be able to do more things, stopping where we stopped is going to give her that ability to do that.”
“At that moment, I almost burst into tears there,” Floyd said. “And it didn’t totally register for her then, but I immediately thought of dance. She’s gonna have range of motion.”
The next day, Bridget was ready to get up and go even trying to do a plié in the hospital room.
Taking it easy is Bridget’s next challenge. The surgery boosting her height too. Now, she’s the same height as her twin sister.Â
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