Friday, December 23, 2011

Elisabeth's New Feet!

Yesterday was such a happy and successful day!

We traveled to Spokane so that Elisabeth could get her casts off. It was absolutely amazing to see her feet in a normal position. I found myself just staring at them in awe the whole rest of the day.

Donald and I are so pleased with the quick results that we have seen from this surgery. We had talked about doing this for the past two years. In fact, we had met with the orthopedic surgeon about it twice before, but he never wanted to operate; he didn't think that she had the potential to stand and therefore didn't want to put her through it.

But this time around things were different. 7 days after her stem cell infusion last May she started showing the desire to put pressure on her legs, but because of the deformity in her feet she couldn't bear her own weight. We explained all of this to the surgeon - how we felt that she really did have the potential within her to stand (with extra support, of course). This time around he agreed to operate (it took quite a bit of convincing by Donald and I though.)

Now here we are, 4 weeks post-op, and she is already doing amazing things.

Miracles are abundant!


[There goes the first cast...]


[Ta da!! A brand new, perfectly-shaped foot!]


[We love having Alexandra and Lorelai be an active part of Elisabeth's 'team' - what a great learning experience this is for them.]


[Underneath the second cast we discovered quite a bit of dried blood; Alexandra got woozy and had to sit down.]


[...and number two is off - another perfectly-formed foot!]


[We went straight home and gave those legs/feet a bath. Now they're sparking.]


What a week, what a week!

First I was freed from my brace and then Elisabeth was freed from her casts. I would say we both got the best gifts ever!

Merry Christmas!!
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