end of a long day

By the time we finally got home, this little man was missing his pants, his shoes, and his socks.

He had blue sticky sucker drool on his shirt and his face and his hair.

He had marker on his left leg and plaster on his toes.  

He had hospital floor germs on his hands and dust under his fingernails.

He had snot smeared from his nose to his ears.

It was the end of a very long day. 

 

Today was our appointment at Shriners Orthopedic Hospital in the medical center.  Though we already have an orthopod - Dr. B - who we really do love - we decided to get a second opinion to make sure that there's not something we should be doing that we aren't doing for this little man.  Our recommended course of action up until now has been to watch and wait, hoping that time + growth would straighten Luke's tibia most of the way, and then surgeries later down the road would help straighten and lengthen the bone even more.  So we drove to the med center today for our long awaited, highly anticipated Shriners appointment. 

Two-and-a-half hours, three x-rays, and tons of questions later -- we finally got our second opinion.  And ironically enough, it was about the same as the first. 

To sum it up, the doc at Shriners today pretty much agreed with Dr. B.  Time, growth, and weight bearing would help Luke's tibia straighten out, but that he would be left with a leg length discrepancy that could be treated surgically. 

So we left Shriners and celebrated that bit of news with a cupcake from Crave - yummy! - and headed to Dynamic Orthotics, where we met our new orthotist.  This is the guy that's going to try to make Luke a splint that works.  Our old orthotist has tried three times to no avail, so it was time to move on and give someone else a shot!  He was wonderful, and this was probably the highlight of our day.  We got a plaster cast of Luke's leg and it looks like we'll have a new splint on Friday.  Awesome.

So overall it was a really good day.  Despite hours in the car and hours in a little bitty exam room and a really bad cold, little man was a great trooper and stayed happy all day long. 

I can honestly say that tonight I have such a peace about what we are doing for our son.  I wish he didn't have this challenge in front of him, but he does.  I thank God for the opportunity to watch him grow and be a part of his amazing little life.  We continue to pray for complete healing, and every day until then we will fight for his best possible care.