Learning little by little (April 2012 - 9 months old)

We went to the Orthopedics yesterday for Sydney's foot and mostly heard repetition things, but as we were driving home we had a conversation that I thought was worth repeating. It went as follows:
"Can you imagine if they told you up-front everything that they were going to have to do for her club foot at the first appointment?"


"No! That would be insane!"

"Ya, it would go similar to this: 'Well, it is just a club foot... but first we will cast her for about 4 weeks, and you'll have to come in once a week for that. We will have to cut her Achilles tendon on the 3rd one and then hope that it heals right. After the casts, you'll have to put these annoying shoes on nightly that she is going to hate and probably scream while you lace them and buckle them every night. At about 9 months, we will take an x-ray of her legs to determine how her bones and everything are developing, because with only 4 toes can come many complications such as missing your ACL, your fibula, or possibly another bone in your hip area. She's is likely to have 1 smaller foot that you will have to either buy 2 different pairs of shoes for, or buy shoes at Nordstrom because they are pretty much the only store that allows you to purchase 2 shoes of different sizes. If her leg ends up being shorter there are 2 options.  Option one is that she will have a little surgery where we will place brackets on the growth plates on her longer leg so that it will stunt the growth for a bit so that the shorter leg can catch up.  It's possible we may have to do that twice.  Option 2 is the more likely candidate because her leg is probably going to be more than about 5 cm shorter. With this option we will go in, cut her bones in her leg, and then she will wear a brace for 6 months that you will stretch daily so that her leg lengthens. OH! and we'll probably have to do that twice as well. You will continue to have to come in about every 6 months too.  But I think that is it. Any questions?'"

 ....SILENCE.

lol. Ya. I think it's best that they break it up.  Doesn't seem as bad when you get little bits and pieces here and there.

She had the little xray thing, and they said that her fibula(I think that was the bone) was there and looks good so far.  They can't really tell anything else yet, like if she's missing her ACL or any of that.  He did say that her leg is almost 2 cm shorter though, so she will probably have to do the lengthening option where they will cut the bone and she would wear a brace.  They wouldn't do that until she was about 5 or so, then again at 11 or something like that.So there's the update!

Hope you're having a lovely day!