The Big Day!!

This morning was the big day - time to see the Ped Ortho Dr!!

We dropped both Danny and Victoria off at school, which did not make Gerri happy. She said she was ok but I could tell she was nervous. We stopped off at Qu*st to drop off her stool & urine samples and then headed off to Nem*urs Children's hospital. We checked in early, handed over her xrays and waited.

They digitized her xrays and quickly called us back. The Dr then came in to see us, looked quickly at her xrays and then said she wanted a new one of her hips. I told her the new xray was the expensive one I paid for in UA and she laughed when I told her I paid $2 :)

We headed down to xray and she sat quietly while the xray was taken. She was very happy when she realized she had earned 4 stickers!!

The Dr came back and had her jump up on the table where she did some range of motion exercises. She also tried to get her feet to move around a bit.

We looked at the new xray and the Dr explained that the surgery in Kiev actually did 2 procedures. They turned her hip and put it back in the socket and used a bone graft to create a socket. The Dr was surprised that she had been laying down for as long as she had and that she didn't get sick!

The Dr could figure out what the Kiev Dr was doing, but said that there is no rush to do any more surgery on her at this point!!  She will do a small surgery to remove the hardware in her hip. She said it will be done after one year of surgery. The reason is if she needs more surgery down the road the old hardware will not be in the way.

The Dr has taken care of MANY children with club feet and handled several kids with arthrogryposis. The oldest adopted child she has started on was 3 years old. So Gerri is the oldest adopted child that she has begun treatment on.

She follows the P*nsetti method of serial casting but says there is no hurry to start the process since it has been 6 years now. Once she starts the casting we will be in the process for months. The casts will be full leg and somewhat straight legged so she will be able to walk. She will probably stretch out the casts for about 2 weeks each time.Once we start she will will not be able to swim or take a bath or be in the hot tub. So we are debating when to start, we may just hold off till the end of summer.

The Dr wants her to start PT asap. We hope to get the referral soon and get her started. The PT will give us exercises and evaluate her mobility for a wheelchair or walker. The Dr really wants us to get her up and walking asap!! Gerri stood up in my arms and "walked" a couple of steps for the Dr.

The Dr prefers we get a walker to encourage her to walk. She wants us to build up her muscles and confidence.  The Dr also said the socket won't form right without the hip joint moving in it, with weight on it. Once we are done with the serial casting Gerri will probably get a quick surgery that will loosen a muscle in each foot, snip the muscle in her groin that holds her left leg so tight and more than likely at that time remove her hip hardware. We will keep doing her exercises to try to get her muscles to stretch as much as possible before any surgery is done.

So for now we get PT started and get her up!

We will be doing our annual vacation up North in June for a couple of weeks.

School starts back up in August and we will probably start the casting then.

We are torn as Gerri really wants her feet fixed and we really want her feet fixed, but as the Dr said this is a long term process and there is no rush. The Dr said keep her moving, swimming is very good for her too.  The Dr did say Gerri was such a smart happy child and that we were very lucky.

I didn't take any pictures since I left my camera at home!

We were out within 2 hours!

We decided we would get her blood drawn and she was NOT happy with that!

It took both Dan and I to hold her still :(

We took her out to lunch to reward her for being so good today, first time just her and mommy and daddy. :)

Here she is at the start of lunch:

A little sass coming out!

Ice Cream!!

The kids were very happy to see her at pick up!

Here they are going on vacation!

They packed themselves :) and Gerri has princess shoes on her hands :)

Here they are AT vacation!

Gerri and Victoria were in Hawaii and Danny was in Costa Rica :)

Today also marks one month home!!! It has gone by SO fast and she has done SO much!!