Saturday, July 28, 2012

Recess is over

We have been having a great time on our 2 month break.  It occurred to me that I should update the blog but no...we were on a break from treatment so I took a break from blogging too.  Within the past 2 months my hubby and I went on a trip to San Francisco.  We went camping in the Santa Cruz mountains for 2 nights then went and visited the city for another 2 days.

Here is Cameron and Nolan hiking in Big Basin.


Here is how excited Nolan was to visit the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  This was inside the rain forest exhibit and there were butterflies everywhere.

I was home for 3 days and went back on a plane to Boston!  Here is the little man and I on board the USS Constitution.


We have also had good family time.  Cameron recently got a new job so things are a little less stressful around here.  He is working for an awesome company (who has awesome health care) and we will continue to receive Kaiser health care with his new employer.  I am so thankful we get to keep all of our doctors.  I finally was feeling ok with everything.  And I am SO SO SO happy we only had to pay 2 months of cobra insurance.  We made it work but I was not a fan of writing a $800 check for something that used to cost $80.

So in the middle of all these good times I got the dreaded call from the orthopedist.  It's impossible to ever get an appointment so I always get a call the day before and am told a time to be there.  I got the call yesterday to be there today at 1:45pm.  I know it is necessary but I am just so afraid of bad news.  I've gotten really good about being relaxed and not stressing.  So maybe only having 24hr notice is good...it only gives me 24 hrs to stress and I can relax the rest of the time.



Here are the xrays from the appointment today vs. May 16th.  Today's are on the top and May's are on the bottom

Here is the close ups of a frontal view and a side view.

What do all these pictures mean? Well the curve of his leg was 120 degrees in May.  Today it is 140 degrees!  That means there was approximately 20 degrees of correction with no casting!  Now only 40 more degrees to go before getting to 180 which is a straight line.

Also Dr. Shoemaker pointed out the tiny little white dot that is at the end of his tibia...can you see it in the left xray?  That dot is where new bone growth will develop and it uses that bone? as a guide.  It is supposed to be in the middle...Nolan's is on the side.  Usually this would be bad but in our case it's good!  It shows that his body knows there is a problem and is fixing it.  Hooray!

We will go back in 4 months for a recheck.  At the time he will probably be fitted with an AFO or otherwise known as an ankle foot orthodic to help is foot stay in place when he learns to walk.  The shoe will also provide an extra lift to make up for his LLD.  Right now it is estimated to be 2-3cm and will be corrected with a leg shortening surgery of his right leg when he is 4 or 5 years old.

So far so good!  Thank you to everyone for your positivity.  We need lots of good vibes to make it through the next few years.

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