My 11 year old niece was recently diagnosed with Perthes Disease. It's a degenerative hip disease. Here's a link...not because I think you're horribly interested, but scroll down a bit and check out the cast she's gonna have put on, on Monday...4-6 weeks BEFORE she has surgery. I went to Michael's and got her a bunch of stuff she can do this summer while she's laid up. ..and I suggested Farmtown to my sil!!

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00070