four little blondies: More Surgery for Lauren

We took the girls to see their Orthopedic doctor yesterday and he was very pleased with Alison's progress and now only wants to see her on a yearly basis. However, poor Lauren did not fair so well. She had to have xrays of her hips and it showed that her right hip is almost dislocated due to her spasticity. So in order to stop her hip from totally dislocating which would mean bone surgery she will have to have the lesser of two evils which is muscle surgery. She will have to have adductor (inner thigh) muscle lengenthening done, read the following it gives a good explanation of exactly what will be done (http://static.nemours.org/www-filebox/pdf/gaitlab/adductor_lengthenings.pdf). The recovery will not be fun, she has to be in a spica cast (http://64.143.176.9/library/healthguide/en-us/images/media/medical/hw/h9991427_001.jpg) for about 3 weeks and then she will be in maple leaf brace (http://falkprosthetics.com/files/Falk_3-07newsleter.pdf go down to page 2 and you will see it at the top of page) for about 3 months. Both of these cast and braces need to be worn 24/7. Then after all that she can go back to her current brace that was supposed to prevent the hip subluxation in the first place :0(

So all this will be happening on January 11, almost one month before the baby will be born. This is NOT going to be an easy time for us, mainly because I will not be able to lift Lauren in her heavy cast (which could add another 10lbs to her 23lbs of weight) without risk of causing premature labor, and believe me I cannot risk another preemie! Luckily Grandma Teresa will be arriving on Jan.8, little did she know what she was getting herself into ;0)

Anyway, after learning all this it just makes me wonder why my sweet little girl, no child should have to suffer through all this (I know it could be worse). Some days it's just necessary to feel down about all this, this wasn't supposed to happen to my girls. But it did, so we deal with it and are just thankful to have her with us on earth.