Our appointment was with the orthopedic doctor in madison. I was a little on edge for this appointment because our orthopedic doctor we had with Lua was pretty much a jerk to us. I was really hoping this experience would be better this time. And it was! When we were in the hospital with sol, I had talked to the rehab doctor and it sounded like the thought was to do nothing for Sol and keep up with the stretches and therapies. I remember her saying that we had to decide what we wanted for his future, if we really wanted him to be able to put weight on his feet or not, it was something we would have to decide. I guess the thought that since we lost Lua at 7 months, maybe it wouldn't be worth doing too much and just spend the time we have with him and not making him miserable in casts. That was the impression I sort of had, but I could be wrong. Either way it made me nervous for the ortho appointment. The doctor was great! A really excellent orthopedic doctor. The ortho doc we had in the NICU was really good too so I was hoping we would get a doctor equal to him and I think we did, he is really nice and really helpful! What he is thinking is that Sol will need to have a tendon release done on both his feet. He doesn't have club feet, many people in the hospital said he did but this doctor confirmed he does not. He is really tight in his feet though which is why he will need this done to give him more range in his feet. For some reason I find this very exciting, The more range he gets, the more options he has! His feet are very tight and I don't think stretches alone will help with his feet so I think this is the right direction to go. He also talked about his knees and it looks like casting will be the way to go for his knees. We hope anyways! If casting doesn't work then we would have to look at surgery to open some things up. I really want his knees to open more, he has such good movement coming along with his legs I can only imagine how much he can get going once his knees aren't so tight. So we have about 6 months that we can wait before we start this, but looks like it needs to be started before 6 months are up. We figure we would give Sol the summer and once fall comes we will start the process of casting and his tendon release. This gives sol a good few months to keep up on getting stronger before he gets his casts which will weigh him down.
It really surprised me that he was wanting to do all of these things, especially since the rehab doc made it seem like nothing really would be done at this point. I asked him if it was worth it to do all of these things and he said that many times doctors will say this kid wont live to be 3 years old and then they end up being 12 years old and no one has done anything with them! So he says it is always worth it, but if sol is miserable and/or if the casting isn't working, than we just stop. I think that is a great attitude to have and a great way to look at it! I am excited to get the ball rolling. Sol will have another hip ultra sound as well just to see how they are doing, previously they had shallow sockets, but the doc said he feels with time the sockets will fix themselves. Nothing will be done with the hips. Even dislocated hips, people can walk with them, the only time they will mess with the hips is if there is a lot of pain going on, other wise, we leave the hips alone. The ortho doc said Sols hips feel great and move great, he was really happy with how his hips look, which was nice to hear!
We also met with birth to three a couple of weeks ago. We talked about Sol and our goals and now we are going to have another meeting with them tomorrow. I'm not really sure what birth to three can do for us, I got a slight impression they wont be doing much, but we will see tomorrow what happens. We are also looking into getting therapies from somewhere else as well, that is my next big project to work on. Right now we are giving him a lot of bath time so he can really move his legs, he likes it just like Lua did!
We also made a change to Sols feed. We decided to get rid of his over night feed. Last night was the first time we tried it. He did really well in my opinion. His last feed was close to 10:30pm and he woke up at 5:30 hungry!! poor baby, so I gave him his feed right away, but still, 7 hours is pretty good! And it felt kind of great to not have to get up at 2am for an hour getting his feed ready, feeding him, and then going back to sleep for another 3 hours after. Crazy how good it feels to get some good sleep overnight! We will see how he does tonight, hoping it goes well again.
Sol is now 4 months old and hopefully he is only going to get better from here. I think the vent has really been doing him well, giving him the rest he needs to reserve the strength he needs. We will see what happens the next few months, hopefully. May is sick, yet again, first time she is getting sick and being around him all the time. Here will be the big test and hoping Sol doesn't catch what she has. Even though I'm not 100% sure if it is a cold or allergies, but most likely a cold. So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, Sol does not catch it. If he does, hopefully the cough assist and vent do their job. I have only called the pulmonary doctors every week for the last three weeks, so if I have to I guess I will just keep calling in!
He was such a happy baby yesterday, a happy baby makes my heart happy!
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