Some delay, but...

We have our new AFO!  Hooray!  Last week we were supposed to go back to Chapel Hill and get E's new brace as well as get a check up from the surgeon.  Unfortunately, we got hit by the stomach flu and that totally sidelined us for about 4 or 5 days as we all worked it out of our systems.  This week we are much healthier, so we headed back up to UNC for the appointments.

First we met with E's PT Kerry, and at this point he just cries any time any provider approaches him while at UNC, so I hope she didn't take that personally.  I think he's just tired of the whole process.  Anyway, she put the AFO on his foot and adjusted it to fit him.  The good news is that the company warranties the brace for 90 days, including if he has a growth spurt and needs a new one.  The bad news is that he's going to need a new one probably every 6-12 months.  We'll see what our insurance company says about that :-P.

Then on to Dr. H.  We didn't have to wait very long, fortunately, because E was starting to get grumpy.  The fluoroscope was quick and painless, but the expression on the doc's face did not give me the warm and fuzzies.  He was not happy with the alignment, but he said that the only way to correct it any more would be very extensive surgery.  Not an option, in my book anyway.  Before we started this journey, E's foot obviously had something wrong.  The muscles were not developing with the proper "rhythm."  His foot works just fine now.  He may end up with a flat foot on that side, but no big deal on that one.  I have 2 of those, and I use a hard insert in my shoes when I run - whoopie.  Dr. H said that usual recommendations are to wear the bar and shoes at night until 2 and the AFO until 2 or 3, but as long as the braces aren't bothering E, we should keep him in them as long as possible.  I can definitely live with that.

We still aren't walking independently, but the 2 of us do laps up and down the house with E holding my fingers, and he cruises around the furniture like nobody's business.  He has a few toys that are push toys or walkers, and he adores those, but I'm not sure they aren't holding him back, so I'm going to put them away for a few days.  He did take a step on his own a few nights back, so I'm sure we're on our way.  When I asked the PT, she said the it could take him as long as 3 months to catch up the time he lost in the cast and adjust to the AFO, so no worries.  He'll walk when he's ready, and very likely he'll just about skip straight to running.  Maybe I won't worry so much about getting to the gym, because I'm sure I'll be running from here on out!

A new year, a new perspective

And given that my brilliant son has figured out how to crawl, on all fours, while in the Denis-Brown brace, my husband and I have decided to not go ahead with the purchase of the Dobbs brace.  I think that the Dobbs brace is a better option to make the transition easier for the older baby, and it looks like he would have had an easier time dealing with that vs the DB bar.  However, 2 weeks into this lovely journey, he's got the DB bar mastered.  It isn't keeping him from sleeping, and it's only keeping his mobility limited due to the fact he's in it 18 hours per day.  As soon as Jan 18 rolls around, we'll have the daytime AFO brace and that won't be an issue anymore.  I'm still not a fan of the DB brace for older babies, but we have it, and he's used to it, so we'll keep it.  For now.

As for his mobility in general, his right knee is getting stronger and stronger.  Staying at my in-laws house for a week with their carpeted staircase, gave him a great daily workout as we climbed the stairs (again, and again, and again LOL).  He now not only doesn't limp when he walks holding out hands or with the toy walker Santa got him, but his step lengths are evening out.  For you non-therapists out there, that means that he's not hurrying to put the left foot down faster than the right one because he doesn't trust the right one to hold his weight.  It's a very good sign of gait development.  I'm not 100% sold that him using the walker toy is a great thing for independent gait development (I'd heard from a pediatric PT many years ago that they actually might slow down independent gait development), but he likes it, and until or unless it becomes a problem I'll roll with it.

The skin on his right leg is also starting to look a LOT better.  His knee had been very red for several days, mostly due to all of the crawling and pressure he was putting on it that he had not done for 5 months, and the redness is gone.  We're using a blister preventative on a few spots on his feet that wanted to be red after the brace comes off, and that combined with (I believe) us getting better at putting the brace on snuggly is keeping the skin on his feet looking better.  His eczema is back unfortunately, that he had as a baby, so we're lotioning the dickens out of his arms and legs after bath and in the mornings.  I think, most likely, this is coming from not having a true bath daily for 5 months and all of a sudden going back to that.  He is loving bath time though, so unless the eczema gets really bad we'll just keep slathering on the lotion.

So the new year is looking brighter indeed.  God is good, indeed!