Operation Footprint documentary

I woke up this morning to read that Iowa City had been hit by a tornado last night.
Sad news for those who love this little city.
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
As I was taking Anna to ballet yesterday we passed the Red Cross, and the thought occured to me that I should sign up to volunteer. Brad and I had started the process years ago before the kids were born, but got distracted. Maybe now is a good time to try it again.
Support your local Red Cross!
http://www.redcross.org/

Success

I haven't updated in awhile. It's been over a month since our last post and enough time has passed to say officially that we have achieved success with shoe compliance.
Ian wears them every night (minus an occasional night when he might be sick, etc...) and is tolerating them better as the weeks go on. He's not waking up so often (for awhle it was like having a newborn again). He still wakes up with red areas, but they fade every day and are not progressing to open sores.
He can hop up and down in them while balancing, and amazingly, he learned to walk in them a few days ago without holding onto anything. You'd have to see it to believe it.
One of these days we'll put pics up from the trip and other recent ones.
Little man also has pneumonia right now...once again we caught it early so it was only in his lower left lung.
He has a tendency to surprise us with stuff like this. :)

I've thought about whether or not to make this blog into a general one, instead of just clubfeet, because there's lots more to write than just this stuff. But for the sake of other families actually looking for information, we'll keep this one as is. Perhaps we'll start another in the near future.

Doing better

Tonight we put thick socks on Ian, wrapped his feet in a piece of fleece, and attached strips of padded moleskin to the inside of various places of the shoes. We put them on at dinner and then went out to our favorite bookstore to distract him and wear the kids out before bed. Ian did awesome getting around in the shoes! He can balance alone, crawl up steps, walk with one hand held, and is close to walking with no support! It's funny to watch...he looks like those little green toy soldiers in the Toy Story movie. He's pretty good at maneuvering around objects too.

Later, as we came home and put him to bed, he complained about his shoes being on. I knew tonight he wasn't hurting, he just didn't want them on. So I tucked him in and told him a story about his feet and his special shoes. He smiled and closed his eyes and seemed to accept it.
He's not woken up since.
HURRAY!!

Not a good night

The Mitchell shoes came 3 days ago in the mail. We were impressed with some of the new changes, like the wider straps and the higher piece of rubber going up the back of the heel.
The first night, Ian let us put them on with no problem and only woke up once during the night. In the morning, we saw 2 red areas on his big toes and the area of the foot right below it...basically under the top buckle.
We let him go barefoot that morning and in a few hrs they had mostly cleared up.

The second night, Ian ran away from us when we said it was shoe time. As I gently led him downstairs he growled "I don't like mommy. I don't like daddy. I don't like Anna. I don't like Sam." (Sam's the cat). Despite his grumblings, he still let us put them on easily. In the morning, the spots by his toes were back, one of them was raw, and there were 2 red spots above the back of each heel.

Tonight he gave me a few kicks before I put them on. I cut pieces of the Duoderm that Ponseti had given us and placed them over his sore spots and put some thicker socks on him. He wore them for awhile before saying "My shoes are hurting me." He went to sleep easily but awoke about an hr later sobbing about his shoes hurting him. Nothing I did calmed him down. He was obviously in pain, so I took off the shoes and patches to check his feet. Sure enough, the red areas are redder and bigger.
So...leave them on, torture the kid, have worse sores in the morning, or take them off and let the spots heal up a little. Brad is out, so I made the reluctant yet executive desision to take them off.

We have some creative thinking to do tomorrow...we'll take ideas.

Hurray!!

We arrived last night in Iowa City. We made good time and it took us about 8 hrs to get here. The kids were angels in the car (thank God for portable DVD players!) and we were checked into the RM house before dinner. We had our appt this morning and Ian does not need casts for now! Yahoo! They took impressions of his feet so we could get new shoes and he will be in the Mitchell bar/shoes for 14-16 hrs/night. So we figure we'll put them on by 6:30 pm, take them off by 9:00 am. We are all kind of stumped by the raw areas Ian gets because they haven't had problems with any of the other kids in the Mitchells, but they gave us something called DuoDerm to put on his feet...a patch kind of like a second skin. Also we are to keep the shoes set at 40 degrees and gradually turn them out 5 degrees every few weeks until we reach 60. We will come back in Aug. for a checkup. Although we were receiving treatment in Cincinnati too, Brad and I both feel they are much more thorough out here and so we think the trips are worth it despite the inconvienence. Ian's feet are still abnormal but for now we don't have to deal with the casts or tenotomies or anything like that and we are extremely grateful. So instead of dragging around a very heavy and sad Ian for the next 2-3 wks, he gets to run and jump and play just like his big sister. :)
We will head home tomorrow morning.

Once again the level of care and attention here at the U Iowa clinic was unbeatable. It was a busy place but it is obvious everyone is well cared for.
And as for the RM house...it is such an experience everytime we are here. You don't even realize the extent of services they provide if you haven't had to use them. We again met amazing families, and made lots of friends. There were tons of clubfoot kids again, and one in particular who we will stay close in contact with.
Some of these families here are suffering tremendously, and the RM gives them a safe place to come home to every day. You'd think it would be full of sadness here, but it's not. It's filled with hope and compassion and comfort and community. This house and the people we meet here will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Thanks everyone for your prayers as we came out here.
Please pray for Ian as you can over the next few weeks as he gets readjusted to the shoes. We expect lots of sleepless nights and many tears, but please pray with us for a smooth transition and intact skin!!
(We'll add pictures once we get home!)

Trip postponed

We were supposed to leave this weekend for Iowa, but we've had to cancel. Ian's got sinusitis, strep throat, and scarlet fever. Ugh! We'll reschedule and try again in about 3 wks.