More Progress

Eliza continues to get a little stronger and more mobile each day.  Physical therapy has been a great help.  It’s allowing her to be more physically active, as well as work on walking again.  Though she still needs to use the crutches to walk right now, she is bearing more weight and has more range of motion in her ankle.  The biggest joy is that her pain now is located around her incisions and no longer in the arch of her foot where her chronic pain had been before the surgery.  She has a way to go before we know for sure how successful the surgery was, but the progress gives us all hope.
Pain and swelling are still a challenge, but Eliza hardly ever complains.  Finding shoes and boots that work is not easy, but we are managing.  We are so happy that she is back to school and many of her regular activities.  During this season of holidays and celebrations, our family realizes that we have many reasons to be thankful.  

Back to Gillette

We took a quick trip back to Minnesota for a post op check the other day.
 
Eliza was most excited about getting the cast off.  This part of the process was so much better than the cast going on!  We don’t need to remember that painful part.  She enjoyed being able to shower and lotion up her itchy skin.

Here are Dan and Eliza checking out her new and improved foot and leg.  After x rays, a visit with the surgeon, a fitting for a new orthotic and a PT evaluation we learned that Eliza is healing up well.  The new goals are to start bearing weight with the help of crutches and working on strength building in PT.  It was a huge relief for us to hear that everything is looking good.  In about 6 weeks we go back for another check. 

Better Each Day

Here’s Eliza on the way to school last week.  Sorry for the delay posting, time has gotten away from us.  The update tonight is that Eliza went from going to school for a couple of hours at a time 2 weeks ago, to staying for the whole day last week.  Today was the first day she went with crutches and not the wheelchair.  Pain seems much lower now and the swelling is less, even when she is up on crutches.  As she has started bearing some weight on her foot, she reports that the soreness is not the same as the ongoing pain she has dealt with for years.  That allows us to be cautiously optimistic that the surgery took care of the chronic pain.  It will probably be several more weeks or months before we know for sure.  We all look forward to her follow up appointments and cast removal back at Gillette Children's Hospital later this week.  Praying for a good report and that she will ready to move onto physical therapy.