Good News!

Sorry for the late post regarding the outcome of our daughter's first follow-up visit...our son actually got sick on our way home from Iowa City on Monday and has been sick ever since. I took him to the doctor tonight and found out that he has a pretty bad case of strep throat!

However, "Feisty Girl's" appointment went very well overall!! (Yeah!) Dr. Morcuende dropped her brace wear time to down overnight sleeping hours only, which "Feisty Girl" is just loving since that means that we now put her brace at bedtime (which we've been doing) but then she gets to have it taken off right away when she wakes up in the morning. Prior to our visit she had to wear her brace an average of 2.5 hours in the morning after waking up. The bad news (if I can even call it that) is that she might need another tendonotomy/cast at her next visit if her tendon doesn't loosen up more between now and then. However, one additional tendonotomy and cast is something we can deal with!

So, the plan now is that we will return to Iowa again in February or March of next year and if everything still looks o.k. then we will likely be done with our visits to Iowa. At that point, Dr. Morcuende said that she would just need to be monitored on a yearly basis so that her bone growth could be charted and her need for future treatment could be closely monitored. The good news is that that can be done locally, either at Gillette Children's Speciality Healthcare or at the Minneapolis Shriners Hospital...both of which are within one hour of our home, versus our trips to Iowa City which are 4.5 hrs from our home.

Either way you slice it, we are SUPER happy with this news!