HMO=harshly manages options
We are getting rid of the braces. I’ve been in to the doctor Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and today (Monday) about these braces. They don’t work and have been falling off and hurting Laelie. Problem is that my baby requires a different kind of brace because her ankles/heels are not fully formed (the bone is out of place from all the casting) and she’s special. Okay that’s not the problem, the real problem is that it took a week to figure that out and my insurance (HMO) doesn’t like this change. The doctors have to get my insurance to cover an alternative option for Laelie’s care. We’re working on it. It will take 7-10 days for the new braces to come because of insurance delays. In the meantime, I have to decide rather or not to put Laelie back in casts or keep her in these painful shoes! Both options are bad news, but which is worse? I wish the insurance didn’t have a say and we could just go forward with the new braces. I don’t want her back in casts if they’ll hurt her or something. I don’t like the shoes. What do I do?
One of our doctors also said that she believes Laelia has torticollis. It’s probably just part of the arthrogryposis, but I didn’t think her arthrogryposis affected her neck up. That means we’ll have to watch her speech and jaw and stuff later on now. We are trying some exercises to see if we can avoid getting a helmet. That’s all we need–splints, braces and a helmet. No way she’ll be socially stigmatized then… sheesh.
Bla.
In other news, I’m learning that my daughter is going to do things in her own way. This is the age when babies start to reach out for things. Well, as this picture shows, when Laelie sees something she wants to reach out for, out comes the tongue! She’ll stretch her tongue out towards the toy she wants. I wonder if all babies do that or if that’s her own special thing. I learned about a woman in her 40s with arthrogryposis who paints with her mouth. And God gave my daughter one pretty mouth too. 
