Friday, August 29, 2008

Mya and Luke- Both need surgery

Thursday I took Mya and Luke to see Dr. Standard,
our peds. ortho. surgeon who has treated them both.
This is a picture of both of them in May with their new
treatment, along with some pt to straighten their legs.
They would wear this only at nite.... quite frankly they
did not work well. Luke was used to wearing full leg braces
so he did fine but Mya found it very difficult to wear them very
tight... and every amI found her leg bent. Anyway at our appt.
yesterday we discussed other options. Luke will have surgery on
his r knee to put something like staples arounf his growth plates to steer his knee more straight.
In Dr. Standard's words it is just a "tweak to his leg". The other leg is doing great.

Now Mya is more involved . When we adopted her she was only 11 lbs.
at almost 13 months old. She was paralyzed on her l side- mostly her leg and foot.
She saw a ped. neurologist at Hopkins over a 12 month time and he finally diagnosed polio.
Mya has done phenomenally well with just intensive pt, serial casting and bracing... However the
last year she had reached a plateau and has been hoping on her r foot(very fast ) to get around. She loves to move and go fast.... So she has had gait studies, and an AFO and pt... now we are having to choose to do some surgery on her l leg to straighten the knee and lengthen her femur ( the long thigh bone) 3 to 4 cm. She has a leg length discrepency. It was 2 cm which was ok but now has gotten to be shorter. So she will have a similiar leg surgery to straighten her leg and be placed in an external fiixator for as little as 3 months or as long as 6 months. It will be a different type and not the rings that Luke had... but after going thru over 40 surgeries with our adopted children in the last 5 yrs.... including open heart surgery with Luke.... the ex. fixator surgery and months in it were the most difficult .... So I am heartbroken for our little Mya to have to go thru this.... It is tough and very difficult but the results are so worth it.... We are planning on taking her to Shriners ( they saw her and Luke before) in 2 wks to get their opinion but more as a connection for braces... they are fantastic and do not charge. We are planning on doing both of these surgeries this fall. Luke also will have another palate surgery. He also needs to have open heart surgery to replace his aortic valve.. we see the cardiologist every 6 months for the evaluation and the timing of this surgery..... Jonas will also be getting his eye surgery. A very busy fall for us. Please pray for our family as we walk thru the next months .... How sweet it will be to see the kids walking, talking and self esteem restoration thru the prosthetic eye given.

1 comment:

Christie M said...

That is the cutest picture! We will pray for you....
Sarah is having surgery in October after we return from Ukraine. (we'll be leaving in 2 weeks and be gone 2 weeks) So October will be reconstruction on her knee, and trimming of the bone for her prosthetic, then tendon surgery on her hand that doesn't work well.

Ahhhh. Maybe we'll rest.... sometime. :) LOL