Here Comes a Cast. Again.

Well, this beautiful individual is growing up. Literally. Her ortho appointment yesterday revealed Oia is at least 3 inches taller than she was last May. Growth is a wonderful thing for all children but for Oia, it's also an evil. Bones grow, muscles pull tighter, joints become stiffer, range becomes compromised, movements become rigid; all compliments of cerebral palsy. 'Tis part of this life.

Physically, Oia is at a place where intervention to alleviate the tigtness is in order. It has become difficult to stretch her right ankle into neutral (90 degrees) and right knee bends more than desired as a result. It will always be a game of growth-tightness-intervene, and repeat. Always. Thankfully, our interventions are minimal and easy, for now at least. Despite her right sided weakness and increased tightness, our doctor noted how symmetrical Oia's body still is. That's huge.

So. Because our doctor doesn't feel that Botox will deliver any greater relief, or stretch, to Oia's right leg than two weeks in a cast would, we have concluded to scratch the toxin off the list of interventions. I'm cool with that. She didn't get much relief from Botox when we experimented with it over two years ago. Results for her were more drastic with casting. So here's the plan... Return for casting next Tuesday, right foot only, for a hold of hopefully 90 degrees or closest to it. Cast will remain on for an entire two weeks. Once the cast is removed after the duration of two weeks, doctor will assess her range to then determine what needs to be done next. More than likely, it will be a night split (think SMO-style with padding) to maintain the gains received from casting. It sucks but it's just one of those things. What's two weeks? I thank my lucky stars every single day that this is what we deal with. It could always be more. And it could always be worse. But right now, this is okay.