Lucy with her walker

Daddy Toddler here, writing my first guest post for the Trenches while Mommy Toddler is inDIsposed. I have, for your enjoyment, a video of Lucy using her walker from Shriners. She doesn't go far, and she cheats near the end, but it put a smile on my face before I left for work this morning.

How to fit orthopedic braces in shoes

Lucy Toddler got her braces on Thursday. They are intended to help with her hyperflexibility, and we hope they'll stabilize her ankles enough to help her stand and walk. They are super cute (note the lady bugs :-)!

The braces fit perfectly, but I did not anticipate how hard it would be to find shoes to fit them. I could get them in some of Molly's old size 5s, but that meant that Lucy's feet were now almost 2 inches longer than normal. She couldn't walk at all (with us holding her hands), and easily got the shoes off when left to her own devices. After spending several days searching stores, I found these:

These size 3 wide sandals came from a local Payless. The great thing about them is that they open up completely:

This means you can "simply" place the brace in and wrap the straps around:

The bottom strap was easy:

The top was trickier, but I got creative.

I attached the white sandal strap to the red Velcro of the brace:

Then I covered the sandal strap with the red brace strap, and made sure the brace strap attached to the sandal itself.

Tah-dah!

The shoes are small enough that they don't interfere too much with Lucy's gait, and they stay on well. Success!

Lucy's First Shriner's Visit

Lucy Toddler's first Shriner's hospital visit was this morning.

She had a range of motion examination, during which it was confirmed that her hips, knees and ankles are very hyper-flexible. Her knees have improved from the strength training in physical therapy, but her ankles still easily allowed her feet to bend almost up to her shins. It's creepy.

Obviously, this kind of flexibly makes walking a scary and uncomfortable thing to learn. Even with high quality high top shoes, her ankles turn every which way. The doctor said she would benefit greatly from some ankle braces. She cooperated fairly well during the casting process, and we will get them in a month. The hope is that once she gets them, she will feel comfortable enough to begin learning to stand independently and eventually walk.

Her x-rays showed some "steepness" in her pelvis in the socket where the top of the femur sits. This is probably just because she's only recently started weight bearing. They said they'd take a look at her next appointment to see if it's resolved itself.

I think the staff was a little nonplussed at my lack of worry over the whole affair. It took almost 3 months to get this appointment. If we'd gone in January, I would have been a nervous wreck. Three months of hard work in and out of therapy change your perspective.

Leg braces? Great!

Little tiny walker? Fabulous!

A prescription for more therapy 2-3times a week?

Bring it on. We can do this.

My sweet little hard worker

At 11 months, Lucy Toddler could not roll from back to front, support herself on her hands and knees, or bear weight in her legs. If you tried to help her stand up, she would point both legs out parallel to the ground and shriek. The few times I managed to get her to "stand", her knees and ankles hyper-extended strangely.

We took her to the pediatrician, who said she has low muscle tone and hyper-flexibility of the hips, knees, and ankles (he said she has a range of motion in her hips you'd expect to find in a baby 6+ months younger). Her x-rays were normal, so he prescribed physical therapy to and told us to apply to Shriner's Hospital just in case.

Lucy has been in physical therapy twice a week for about 6 weeks. She can now roll from back to front, get into a sitting position independently, support her weight while on her hands and knees, and stand while leaning on something.

The physical therapist thinks there is something wrong with her right hip, because when she army crawls she drags that leg. Because of this tendency, she will probably never "crawl" (which is not a big deal- tons of kids skip that step). We're focusing on standing and walking at this point, and hopefully the doctors at Shriner's will say everything is fine.

Last week, she brought one of her feet forward for the first time while in a walker. It was more like an assisted drag, but her body is learning how to go through the motions (which is the first step). We're still far away from being able to stand or walk independently, and that's ok. I am not in a rush for my baby to be running all over the house. It's just good to know that she's going to be able to do it some day.