One week till Surgery!

Somehow surgery is just around the corner! I cannot believe it is here already! Yet, it has been a long time coming. We started talking about this surgery last fall/winter. This surgery will be on Addie's left arm. He will be doing a tendon transfer where he will take tendon from under her arm pit and put it behind her shoulder. The hope is that with this surgery Addie will be able to get her arm up to at least 90 degrees right now she is probably around 30 degrees. Addie will be having surgery next Tuesday at 12:30 and then she will stay at the hospital overnight. She will have her left arm in a cast until September 26th. The cast will look similar to this picture but it will have a bar between her arm and her stomach part of the cast.

After we finish up this surgery Addie will have a 20 day break before we begin casting on her legs. I was able to get a second opinion on her feet from Dr. Dobbs in St. Louis. He thinks that if we do serial casting for 4 weeks on both feet followed by a small surgery on her Achilles tendon he can correct her feet. Serial casting is where we can the casts every week increasing the stretch each time. This was great news because the Dr we saw down here wanted to cut her whole foot and stretch every tendon which leads to a lot of scar tissue and issues down the road. So we have set things up with Dr. Dobbs and will be doing serial casting Oct 16- Nov 14. On Nov 14 she will have the tendon surgery. Dr. Dobbs will also be able take the plates out of her hips so she will not need a second surgery for that which is a blessing! The four weeks of serial casting will allow Addie to walk in those casts as they should only come up to under her knee. The 4 weeks after the surgery she will not be able to bear weight and the casts will come up to her hips!
Our little girl has a lot going on in the next few weeks/months! Thankfully we should be through all this mess by her 4th birthday!! There will be follow up and we may end up doing more surgery on her arm, feet, and hip after these but none of those are for sure! So we will get through these and enjoy a little reprieve!
We have enjoyed the last few months getting settled in our new home! We were able to take a vacation this summer as a family, and the kids and I took a 12 day road trip visiting all our favorite people! It has been a lovely summer. We have been blessed by our new neighbors, our new church family, and our new friends. It has been so crazy to us the way we have just fit in down here. We are truly grateful for the relationships we have already made and the blessings they have been to us! One of the truly sweet moments was this Sunday at church the Pastor wanted to have a special prayer for Addie and when he was anointing her he had all the children come and place their hands on her!That is what I want my children to see! Their prayers matter! God has a plan for each of them and each of us through the good and the bad!

But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” Matthew 19:14