Remembering when...

The thing about having to purge your house for a big move is that you unearth things you don't even remember you had kept away. Like Sophie's club foot casts.

Sophie's casts from when she was 10 days old to 7 weeks

It doesn't seem like that long time ago when we were taking her to the hospital every week to get her leg cast and how unnerving it was to contemplate the possibility that she might never have normal use of her left foot. And now, every time she annoys us by running away faster than we can catch up or when she heedlessly climbs up the play structure without us close by, I have to remind myself what a gift that actually is.

Sophie still wears her Markell shoes to sleep at night, just as she has every night for the last 2.5 years. At this point, she knows nothing else and probably thinks every child goes to sleep with a pair of shoes connected by a bar in between. She is starting to protest a little-- just because they sometimes get in the way of her getting comfortable in bed-- but we're going to try to persevere and keep her in them till she's four. Our pediatric orthopedics doctor gave us some references to specialists in Singapore who can take over supervising Sophie's progress and thankfully, they're at the university hospital and so close to us.

Markell shoes then and now

We just absolutely have no space to bring all her casts or shoes back to Singapore with us, but we are going to keep the first ones. They'll make for good show-and-tell items when the time comes.

See photos of Sophie's club foot treatment here.

Happy feet!

Look guys, no brace!
Originally uploaded by ghetto of our mind

After 2 and a half months of wearing the brace for 23 hours a day, we got the OK from Dr. Caird yesterday for Sophie to move to nighttime-only wear!! Jude and I were hopeful before the appointment but didn't want to bring it up- the possibility of a relapse was too terrifying so we agreed to defer to whatever Dr. Caird's professional opinion would be. And so when she suggested that we move to nighttime-only without our prodding, we were only too happy for words :) All that obsessive shoe-tying and re-tying was worth it, as was all that massaging during that one hour a day when Sophie had her foot free. Dr. Caird looked for suppleness and dorsiflexion (which is the movement which decreases the angle between the foot and the leg, so that the toes are brought closer to the shin) and on both counts, Sophie's doing superbly!

We don't want to stop being vigilant about her foot though so we decided that while we'll have her foot free for most of the day (so her left foot can catch up to her right, and to encourage her gross motor development), there will be days when we'll leave it on longer than others just in case. I've read too many stories of non-compliant parents whose children had to then start the whole process again from casting, and that would just be too devastating for us to even imagine... So while we're really ecstatic at Sophie's progress, we don't want to be complacent either.

As for the little trooper- see how happy she was to do tummy-time today without her brace :)

In gratitude: The Ponseti method

We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the important role that Dr. Ignacio Ponseti and the treatment he pioneered has on Sophie's ability to walk/run normally in the future. It's startling that this treatment for clubfeet is not practiced as widely as we would have thought even though it's been around for almost 50 years. It heartens us to know that we've been able to benefit from this non-surgical and highly effective method to correct what might otherwise be a permanent and painful disability. Dr. Ponseti-- at 95 years old-- is still alive and actively practicing and his mandate now is to spread the use of the Ponseti method to as wide a community as possible.

Sophie has done remarkably well throughout the process- being such a brave peanut through the serial casts and the tenotomy (an outpatient mini-surgery to release her Achilles heel); but now comes the toughest part of the treatment- the wearing of the Dennis-Brown shoes to keep the correction in place. Sophie has to wear them 23-hours a day for the next few months, and then only when she sleeps till she's about 2. The three of us are going to have to be very disciplined to stick to the routine-- no matter how uncomfortable it may initially be for Sophie, or how our hearts break at her cries when we put it on-- or the chances of relapse are very high. We've been reading the forum boards and found out that many parents-- for one reason or another-- give up wearing the shoes and then find themselves having to begin the procedure from scratch, beginning with the serial casts again. There is no way we're going to put Sophie through that again.



If you watch the above video - you'll understand why we are so grateful to Dr. Ponseti and all the Drs. and nurses at UM involved with Sophie's treatment. We couldn't have asked for a better or nicer pediatric ortho specialist than Dr. Michelle Caird. And this is why we are so moved to donate to the Ponseti foundation, to help them spread the method, so that children all over the world can benefit from the treatment just like Sophie.