Laelia playing in her new shoes after getting used to them.

I love my shoes!

 This is before we had real socks yet.

Day one. Look how thrilled she is! haha

Thank you for my shoes! Thank you to everyone who helped pay the out-of-pocket costs for these wonderful shoes! Right when we were starting to stress about our insurance saying we couldn’t have them is when we received a gift to pay the $300 deductible (what I called the “downpayment”), another for the shoes themselves and yet another for miscellanious costs (adjustments, socks, co-pays to get her feet looked at, etc.). My family and friends came through and all said, “Go get your baby the shoes she needs!” It was wonderful! We are so blessed beyond words!

These shoes or AFOs (ankle foot orthosis) are for the purpose of holding Lali’s club feet in place before her first major surgery. Her club feet are due to arthrogryposis, so they are far from a simple case. Arthrogryposis makes those little feet want to curl back up and not respond well to treatment. In fact these last few days without a Dennis-Brown bar, her ankles have reverted! Accc! We’re getting the bar on Monday!

Well these new shoes are much lighter and made better than the industrial crap (new orthotic guy’s terminology, not mine ) we had before.

My only contention with these shoes is that they work too well. It has been hard for her to get into them because they hold her foot so much better and that can be a trifle painful. Novel idea to have orthopedic shoes that work, right! Good heavens. I’m still mad at Scope. :-/ 

Our first real socks EVER! 

A treat for me was not only did I get to pick out the color and heart pattern of these pretty shoes, I also got to buy my daughter socks for the very first time in her whole life! She may have had something when she was born to keep her feet warm, but they were never her size because her feet were severely deformed. Then when she was three weeks old she went into casts. But these little bobbysocks are adorable and cheaply found at Target. They are girlie colors and go well with her little shoes. They are even her size and the heal is in the right place (which I couldn’t say about the industrial socks with no heal that Scope gave us for the KAFOs). These socks are not special, just normal girlie socks. I LOVE IT! I LOVE BUYING SOCKS!

Also the last picture above was taken for two reasons: to show her deep knee dimple to the AMC support group for a discussion on the topic and also to show off her straight leg! You heard me! Straight! She was born with both knees bent in tight contractures. They were out to the sides like she was sitting cross-legged in my womb. I had complained a lot about my ribs hurting where those knees were, but my doctor largely ignored me and said that pregnancy was uncomfortable and that the baby will often poke the mother.  (She must have thought I was the biggest whiner… well, as a pregnant woman that was not far from the true. ) Both Lali’s knees came out in bad shape–both with large dimple deformities (that I find adorable now that they are made more pronounced by baby fat ) and one with open, bloody wounds. But those knees have been through a lot of stretching and have become much straighter. Her right knee is straighter than we had ever expected it to be in her whole life! 180 degrees being a straight line, Lali’s right leg is around 170 degrees (!) and her left leg is around 135 degrees. So much improved!

By the way, the same orthopedic doctor who told us that we should ignore her legs and not worry about doing surgery to straighten the knees because she would never stand or walk also told us that even if we did straighten her knees with stretching, they may not bend back. Simply stated, HE WAS WRONG! Her knees are straighter than ever and they bend back just fine. And if she stands one day (which I’m no longer ruling out), I’m marching her into his office and having her do one of her little wiggle-dances while standing on his desk!

PS: Sorry for getting this post up so late!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 7:57 pm and is filed under hooray. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.