Dance Class and Ice Skating with her Prosthetic

Sydney has been doing dance class and an ice skating class and has been loving them! Dance has been good. Since she is pretty young, her prosthetic hasn't really  held her back in any way because they aren't really being too techinical with their techniques(like pointing your toes). The only thing that has been different is the amount of holes that she has gotten in her tights thanks to her prosthetic..  but even without a prosthetic I think she would have gotten a hole or two by now anyway!

 he recently started an ice skating class and is LOVING that. She doesn't get excited about dance like she does with ice skating!(she's the one in the blue coat in all the below pictures). There is one small challenge with ice skating with her prosthetic- the heel in the ice skates. Here is a little heel in the ice skates and because her prosthetic is made with a flat foot, it forces her leg forward/ her knee has to be pretty bent to be in the skates. Luckily with ice skating, you have to bend your knees quite a bit anyway, but it definitely is a little more than a normal bend. She does so good with it though! IT doesn't seem to bug her at all! Her determination with it inspires me!

She loves to skate on her own, which actually means shuffling/trying to keep her balance the entire time, but it's adorable and so fun to see her determination to get it! Her favorite thing to do in class is throw the little stuffed die that they have and skate to get it. She skated to the center of the rink the other day on her own just playing that game.:)

 Skating to the center of the rink!

Time For Her 2nd Leg!

Lots has happened since my last post! Time to get all caught up!

Sydney now has a new leg, but leading up to it she had 3 appointments to adjust her old leg(her big hero 6 leg). One of the times she needed it to be taller, so they took off the foot and gave her a new foot with which they shaved less off of the foot to add a little height (she is so short that on the first leg they had to cut a crescent shape into the foot to get the foot under her stump/prosthetic). At her other appointments they were just adjusting the foam-like liner (she's wearing it in the picture below). It was putting pressure in certain spots because she was growing so they just shaved the foam liner thing down a little in the pressure spots.

After having her first leg for over 6 months (which they told us that her first leg would probably only last about 3-6, so we got some good use out of that leg!) it was finally time to get a new leg. She got her new leg at the end of February. Our prothetist told us that when she started having red marks on the front of her shin up towards her knee, or when she started getting red marks/blisters on the bottom/front of her stump, that it was most likely time to get a new leg. She started having those issues and also started having discomfort on the top of her knee since her prosthetic goes up over her knee to help with hyper-extension and her leg had apparently grown to be too tall for where her prosthesis's knee placement was.

These are from when she was getting her mold done for them to make her new leg. Then we just had to wait for that to be done.

In the meantime she wore her old leg. That wasn't too bad, I just had to remember that she might want to sit in the stroller sometimes when we were walking a lot because of discomfort.

About 1 week after getting the mold done for her new leg, we went in for the first fitting with the clear mold. One week after that (so 2 weeks after getting the mold) we went in for the fitting of her new leg!

Her leg was a little tight, but after making a few adjustments and shaving down the inner liner a little it now fits well! Sydney has lost the majority of her calf muscle(this is normal btw) and so the bottom of her stump is a little bigger than her  calf is. This is a good thing because the bulbous part of her stump will be able to hold her leg on better. It also meant that they had to mess with the leg a little to be able to get it on. Her prosthetist cut a slit into the liner so she could pull it on, and for some reason that did the trick!

 She also wears a super thin panty-hose like sock (seen below) with this prosthetic because it was a little tighter. If she uses her 1-ply socks, she can't get her leg all the way on. These thin socks are apparently usually used for arm prosthetics, but  it worked great for her skinny little leg!:)

 Things have been good since getting her new leg and Sydney's doing great!