On to NEXT Phase

We went in yesterday. She did lose range - which we both expected because I had a tibial stress fracture for the past four weeks that seriously impaired our ability to do the strength parts of the exercises and interfered with our exercise schedule.

But, after some further analysis by Mary, the conclusion was drawn that Gracie's problems mainly stem from the way she holds her hips. And, that she actually had not lost functional range. In fact, after doing some stuff with her hips and remeasuring her she actually gained 5 degrees.

So now we have been moved to the next stage. We have a new exercise - she is to stand facing away from me with her right leg draped over my thigh causing her hips to shift up by fifteen degrees and she is to rock back and forth. (Next time we will add rocking from the left to right but she couldnt do it yesterday.) We will do this as often as we can for fifteen minutes per session.

They added a "forced use" component. She will be taking off her left brace for six hours of the day and will be wearing a shoe that actually fits her foot with a lift in it. They are trying to break down that right side dominance a little.

We are to come back a month after we get the shoes fixed (they are to be mailed in so we will probably get them this Friday after Gracie's piano lessons) to see how its going. Since I am now off my crutches I am sure we will do great.

*** CONGRATS TO BRIGID AND TOM (i hope thats his name - lol) ***

Little more than two years

Less than two weeks to go before we return to Childrens. There is the possiblity that if Gracie hasnt lost range we'll be able to start moving out of the AFOs. If not, they were talking about doing so in January.

She looks good to me in terms of her walking and exercises. I dont know about the range though. She has worn her night brace every night - no exceptions. I know that makes a huge difference to her range.

So we are keeping our fingers crossed as we head towards our appt time. We've been in the program a little over two years now.