Monday, April 29, 2013

Transformation Day

APPOINTMENT #3
     It was an early morning appointment. My husband had taken my son to day care early so that I wouldn't have to find something to do with him during our daughter's X-ray's. Once again she and I went at it alone.
     We pulled in to the parking lot and we were the only car there aside from those in the staff spots. The building was quiet and there were only a few ladies at the desks I walked past to go sign in. Then we waited in the quiet since the staff must have still been trickling in for their shifts. My daughter was weighed and measured and checked out at 11lbs 7oz and about 24 1/8" long.
     Our nurse helped us make the short trip to radiology and I laid my baby girl on the X-ray table expecting the image they were about to take to be the start of the last appointment we would have at Shriners EVER.
     I was wrong... 
     She did wonderfully through the quick X-ray and we got her dressed and headed back to our favorite exam room. The nurse came in shortly after we got settled to inform me that our doctor hadn't yet walked in the door but as soon as he arrived my daughter's X-ray was ready for him to view.

Waiting on the doctor with her Taggie's blankie

     While we waited I entertained my daughter with the few random toys in the diaper bag and played peek-a-boo with her using her precious Taggies blankie. I took her picture, looking back on it now I must have known somewhere deep down that I wanted to document this process since I had taken her picture at every appointment. I was getting bored. I decided if we were going to be waiting I would have her do some tummy time. She stunned me by rolling herself over! (I swear she really did! She even did it 2 more times that night for my husband while I was teaching him how to use her harness.)
     He finally had come in with the nurse. Most of what he said before I saw her X-ray was a blur but it amounted to she needed a brace.
     I was taken down the hall to look at Froggie's X-ray on the computer. It looked like a normal pelvic X-ray to me, though the extent of my medical training is a 10 year old EMT certification and more recent first aid certifications - nothing that would qualify me to say that my daughter's X-ray was fine. In his thick accent our doctor elaborated that my daughter's hips were at 34 degree (right) and 43 degree  (left) angles when they were supposed to be at 30 degrees or less. He showed me where the shadow of her hip sockets was not deep enough which made the angle too high. He opened up a computer program to check the angles even though he had identified correctly without the program that both hips were not at the proper angle.
     While I talked with the doctor and stared back and forth from him to the screen showing the X-ray the nurse had slipped Froggie into a harness. She hated it. We returned and the doctor requested a larger harness simply because my daughter would quickly outgrow the small meant for children up to 3 months and she was put into a medium harness. I was given the run down of where to place all of the Velcro straps (there is SO much Velcro!) and marked off their placement with a pen.
     Per doctor's orders Froggie has to be in her harness whenever she sleeps (at least). If you have a child you may recall that infants sleep A LOT. We discussed whether it was worth removing the harness in between and was informed that the more she wears the harness the better it will work. Due to this conversation my husband and I have made the decision to leave her in it all day with the exception of bath time and some tummy time so that she can continue to work on her rolling skills.
     We arrived with our little tadpole and left Shriners approximately 2 hours as a Froggie with some new gear, a beanie baby kitty (that my daughter is equally as attached to as her Taggies blankie) and the start of a temporary new life style.

First day as a Froggie!


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