Medical Miracle

Before heading out to Braeden's appointment yesterday, while waiting to pay for our lunch, an older lady looks at Braeden, then looks at me and says: "My grandson had clubbed feet. After 10 hours of surgery and then casts, he is fine now. It really was a medical miracle!" I look at her, nod and smile. Half believing it, and the other half thinking "We will see with my little guy..."  Braeden's feet have been atypical from the beginning.  Hence, the hesitation.

However, I am glad to say that Braeden's appointment yesterday went "normal-ish." I say "normal-ish" because the doctor that regularly sees Braeden was on holidays so we met one of his colleagues who was just as knowledgeable and just as good a doctor. Our original doctor suggested that Braeden be put into splints instead of boots and bars (aka: Mitchell braces or Ponseti AFO braces) because he believes that his feet will find it harder to regress. As Braeden continues to grow, we will know if the splints are working by whether or not they are keeping his feet where they are supposed to be.

What I found surprising was the drastic change in Braeden's feet when the orthopaedic technician removed Braeden's casts.

Before First Surgery (August 2012)

After Second Surgery (June 2013)

   
Looking at pictures of his feet like the ones above, puts into perspective how much the medical world has progressed. It was only 10-15 years ago that club feet were treated by breaking the bones of the feet and then casting them. Now, serial casting, cutting certain tendons and then re-casting are used to correct the feet. Thankfully, the current treatments can be less invasive and waaayyyy less painful. So really, the lady was right, treating club feet by surgery and casting is a medical miracle.

Surgery Number Two

It has been a while since I have wrote a blog. For a while there I didn't know exactly what else to write during the waiting period between surgeries and now the excuse has been family circumstances. Now, I have a ton to write about :)

The next leg of the clubfeet journey is another surgery. A tenotomy (aka: achilles tendon) lengthening and loosening of some of the ligaments in his feet. Apparently, the poor guy will be under anaesthesia and the surgery is going to be around 3 hours long. To date, Braeden has been wearing braces at night (which he just grew out of) and we have tried to make a habit of stretching his feet 2-3 times daily to help keep his feet from regressing before surgery.

I have mixed emotions about Braeden's surgery. I am excited that his feet are going to be fixed, but it is mixed in with fear. With my mom passing away from cancer recently and seeing her in the hospital before and after she passed away, somehow I think my brain has equated hospital experiences with grief. I am also a little apprehensive that the surgery might not work and that getting his feet fixed might be more than meets the eye. Now, I know that some of my fear stems from these events being so close and really its about convincing myself that the two events are absolutely different. But you know how it is, you are your own worst convincer! However, I do have faith in our orthopaedic team because they have been so great at taking care of our situation thus far and have been good at communicating the reality of our situation even though it has been difficult for us to hear at times.

Until after surgery . . .

Casting 101

Braeden's casts were wrapped at a hospital fracture clinic a few hours away from where we live, so we had to make sure that Braeden was as comfortable as possible before and after his casting appointments. Here are some tips, things to expect, things I brought and things I wish I knew going into the casting appointments, especially the first on.

1) I wish I knew that some (if not all) babies scream the entire time they are being casted. Braeden screamed the entire time the first time he was casted! Luckily, I'm not one of those mothers who gets embarrassed by her screaming baby. The benefit is that after screaming the whole time, he was KO'd for quite a few hours.

2) Some babies are strong enough to break their casts. Yep! He did that too and not just once, but three times. The first time he was casted, Braeden cracked his casts where the knee bent 30 minutes after his appointment, so we had to rush back to the fracture clinic to reinforce it.

3) At Braeden's first appointment, I wish I had brought a soother or something for him to suck on.  It helps to soothe them while they are on the table. We also allowed him to suck on our finger during casting sessions and that helped too. On a side note, I was one of those parents who was somewhat adamant on not giving their child a soother, but that stopped the first night the casts were on. The first two nights the casts were on were the toughest for us and Braeden. He would wake up almost every hour. I finally gave into the God-given gift of plastic and the sound of silence had never felt as wonderful as it did that night as it was the only thing that allowed him to get back to sleep.

4) Don't use clothing that you don't want casting bits on. I always carry at least two to three onesies in the diaper bag anyway, but I made sure to have lots for casting so that Braeden had a change of clothes after casting. Like I said earlier, casting bits get everywhere.

5) Bring wash cloths and a plastic or wet bag. After the casting is finished, the baby from the waist down has plaster everywhere and to wipe it up the ortho tech gave me the roughest hospital cloth ever. It was like sandpaper! So the next week, I made a note on my phone to bring a soft wash cloth to wipe the plaster bits away. Plaster bits sometimes get in the butt crack and if not wiped off good they get angry! The bag is to put the wash cloth and the onesie in.

6) Urine and poop get on the casts. It is gross and you do your best to wipe it off, but you are also glad that
casts are changed once a week.

7) We changed and fed Braeden before we went into our appointments so that he was as comfortable as possible during them. Sometimes that meant he peed or pooped on the table. Makes for good stories later on.

8) The first time holding your baby after casting could be awkward because they are heavier and you also feel like you don't know how to hold them. You adjust to this awkward moment pretty quickly.

9) Know that friends might be scared or find it hard to hold your baby after he or she has the casts because they also don't want to hurt them. I had to assure some of our friends that holding him normally is fine and that they weren't hurting him.

10) And last but not least, speak up! Braeden wears thick cloth diapers, and when the ortho tech was casting him I had to remind him a couple of times during the casting period to not cast so high up on the leg in order for his diaper to fit. Also, if you have any questions (whether you think the questions are dumb or not) about the casts, don't hesitate to ask even if you think they are too busy. Asking any questions helps to understand the process better and eases your worries.

Parental Clubfeet Guilt Club

Someone told me once that "you are your own worst critic." I believed it when I heard the saying and I believe it even more now that I am a mother. At our second ultrasound, the technician told us that Braeden was going to have clubbed feet. After I heard that diagnosis, it took me a millisecond to realize that I had started to blame myself for his deformed feet and quickly stuffed those feelings away because for one, I didn't want to deal with them and two why should I feel guilty for something that is fixable. But from time to time, I would say and think things like: "I never took my vitamins that is why he has clubfeet", "I sat too long and squished his feet", "I should have known and did something about it", "I should-a", "I would-a", "I could-a." The guilt was starting to become overwhelming until one day I stepped into the doctor's office and she asked me if everything was okay and I just burst into tears.

Before we met with my GP that day, we had an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon and I thought I was handling everything perfectly. I read the 8x12 booklet her secretary gave me on the Ponsetti method, I'd done my research, asked the questions that most parents would ask and I was ready to take on this challenge. However, I refused to recognize that there are strong emotions attached to hearing that your baby will not be perfect.

In hindsight and reading other parents' experiences with club feet, guilt is part of the club feet process and not allowing yourself to work through and feel these emotions stunts the acceptance of the process. As a parent (or a society influenced ideal), you envision and even expect that your own will be perfect and nothing will go wrong.  For me, having to grieve the loss of the "perfect and normal baby" was difficult and also difficult for others to understand because after all, it was only clubfeet.

After calming down from my surprising emotional outburst at the doctor's office, the doctor recommended that I talk about how I was doing with those that were closest to me no matter how stupid or insignificant my feelings may feel. She also said that not talking about my guilt could lead to depression and scared me enough to let down my walls and talk. As I started reflecting and talking about the guilt with friends and family it was shocking how much talking helped. Thoughts like these can be easily be seen as ridiculous and/or crazy, but you really can't help thinking them. Saying these out loud and vetting them through those around you helps you see the truth (or the non-truth in this case). Plus surrounding yourself with a strong and loving community is like gifting yourself with talk therapy!

The Pain of Expectation

I wanted to begin blogging about our experience with club feet when our son got his first casts, but that was 2 1/2 months ago. Oops! But as the saying goes: "It is better late than never".

Our story begins at the second ultrasound. The doctor determined that Braeden would have club feet, so my husband and I researched the best methods to correct his feet. Like all good researchers, we started on google! We stumbled upon the Ponsetti method. We found a doctor that was experienced in the method and when Braeden was 3 weeks old we started the first phase of the Ponsetti method - casting. Each casting session was exciting because we saw movement in both feet. My husband and I thought that everything was going so well that we just wanted to get the surgery over with, and then braces and wahlah everything would magically be perfect! Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Last Tuesday, we were at the IWK (Children's Hospital) for a follow up appointment after the surgery. By this point, my husband and I were excited about the results of the surgery. We were expecting that Braeden would be in the cheaper braces and the road to finishing the clubbed feet process was so close we could smell it. However, when the casts came off the doctor explained that the surgery didn't take as good as he would have liked, partly because Braeden has an atypical form of club feet. This means that his feet are smaller and pointed down further than they should be and he will require more intensive treatment, potentially another surgery and more expensive braces. Something both of us were not anticipating. The surgery was difficult on me because I tend to foresee the worst and there is something about knowing that your little one will be under going anaesthesia that tugs at your heart, so to hear that potentially another surgery would be more likely was devastating. I know that everything is going to be fine and this is just a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things, but currently these are the emotions I need to work through and want to put out there. Hence, the reason for this blog. 

We are travelling to the IWK sometime within the next two weeks for another check in and to get his braces on. I cannot wait to trade in the splints for braces because adjusting his feet into these splints have not been my idea of fun!