Over the past three months I haven't made one post about this, but it has been at the front of my mind. One year ago yesterday Kaitlyn had her second and final spica cast removed. It's amazing to me that it was that long ago. When I think about her time in the cast it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, however she feels like she's been brace free for over a year. For the record she's been out of the Rhino Cruiser Brace for 4.5 months. How crazy is that? Only a little over four months ago I was strapping a brace on her at night. The MOPS moms probably have a hard time believing it because she was never in it around them. 
She was such a trooper while he cut the cast off; she never cried.
Once we were home it was a different story. No ones two year old should have to go through this. Kaitlyn had a low grade fever on top of having her cast removed and putting her sore legs into a brace. With each new cast change their legs are at a little bit different angle. Picture not being able to move a limb for five to seven weeks then suddenly it's moved just a hair and again you can't move it to get comfortable. Switching her to the brace was like having a cast change. Poor baby.
A couple weeks ago she had a follow-up appointment with Dr Brock. He said the same thing my fellow DDH mom, Jayne, said her son's dr said to them. He said that her hip isn't "normal" nor will it ever be. I'm not sure we DDH moms ever think the effected hip will mirror the other one. We just want our kids to be able to jump, run, play sports, walk, and do all the other things kids their ages do. And the worry... I'm not sure it will ever end. Dare her hip pop, she fall down multiple times while walking or have a bad fall in general, I'm worried about her hip. I consider her hip fragile even though the dr says to treat her like any other kid. Well, I sure don't plan on bubble wrapping her. I just don't want to see her go through the long three months in a body cast again like she had last year.
You know... while she was still in the cast I found a website with a video of a DDH child post surgery trying to catch her peers. The other children lapped her several times as the mom exclaimed how she's getting faster an almost able to keep up. This really worried me. From being in the cast then brace for so long DDH kids aren't able build up the strength and coordination to run as fast as their peers. Not to mention they've been held in the frog position all that time and must retrain their legs to walk properly. I was really worried about Kaitlyn Joy falling behind physically. However I noticed she does keep up with her peers when running. She seems to be able to do anything they can do; well, almost. The one thing she is still working on at 4.5 months brace free is jumping. She never jumped pre surgery and couldn't jump for almost nine months afterwards. For her three year check up one of the questions asked if she could jump six inches, well no my child can't. She hasn't had three years of jumping. At that time she had only been jumping about two months. Being so young, if Kaitlyn had two healthy hips she would have been jumping all over the place earlier on. She's getting a little bit better about it, but the kid is a natural pogo stick. She jumps when walking into a store, she jumps around the store, she jumps down the stairs, she does it wherever she can. She used to jump what felt like all the time. However she has probably cut her jumping time to 50-75% of what it used to be. She'll get her six inches.
Now I'm off to search for dance classes, gymnastics, or some other girly activity. Kaitlyn Joy tells me she wants to "tutu dance". She has a tutu that she wears around the house. One day while looking up dance classes she saw the girls were wearing one too.
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