Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Lily's Free!


Lily was born with a curved left leg/foot.


Jeff noticed it from birth, but we were told it would straighten out as she put weight on it. Well, she has been putting weight on it and no straighty-outy. The result was that her right leg became VERY strong (what a kicker) since her left leg couldn't bear her weight since she only used the outer edge of it. Luckily Jeff went to her last check-up and asked about it. The doctor asked if we had consulted an orthodpedic surgeon. Ummm....no, we were told to not worry about it. Long story short, we saw a specialist and boom....she got a cast.

She hated having it put on, but she tolerated it VERY well. She had it on for a total of 3 weeks and I was dying for her to get it off more than anything. We made sure to get some signatures before it came off: The black pen is from Addison and the markers are from Caleb. And of course mommy and daddy signed too. Don't you love all her chub? Those are some amazing legs.


She was finally able to have it off when they had a special brace made for her that she only has to wear at nights. Hallelujah! It was the best to be able to give her a proper bath, none of this sponge bathing business. And changing diapers and putting on clothes was wonderful. The biggest blessing out of all of this was that Lily did not have any blow outs that whole 3 weeks (blow out that goes in the cast means she has to get re-casted....and mucho inconvenienco for moi since each visit has lasted a couple hours for 10 minutes of work). But, within 1 hour of being home, guess who had a blow out that went all down her left, previously casted leg? LILY! All I did was laugh and say a prayer of thanks for the poop to show all its glory after the cast was off.

She now has a perfectly normal left foot, that can go flat with the best of them. The first thing she did once she realized she was free was kick her legs like crazy and has not stopped kicking them since.


Lesson learned from all of this? You have to be your child's advocate and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to have simple solutions that can have an amazing lasting effect on your child.

4 comments:

Kimberly said...

I'm glad to hear everything is much better with Lily's leg. Let's hope you guys won't have anymore trouble with it anymore.

Unknown said...

The last time I saw Lily she was a newborn. Looking at these pictures and realizing she looks totally different now, I definitely need to see her sooner rather than later. She's adorable :)

Lisa Baer said...

Oh my goodness, what good news! I can't even get over how incredible cute she is. I cannot WAIT for March!!! :D

jbaer said...

Thanks Kim! And Darin, yes, she is a big girl and does not look like she did as a newborn. I can't believe how much she has changed. Lisa, you are going to LOVE seeing her in March. She is absolutely darling and so much fun. Plus, she loves singing so you can sing to her to your heart's content :)