Katie Update

Katie had her CHOP appointment this morning at 7:45 am. Somehow I survived driving in Philly with rush hour, detours, road closings, a flooded road, and getting lost. The doctor is happy with her hip. While the hip angle (of the socket) hasn't really changed, it hasn't gotten worse (which apparently it can). The femur is growing; it is still smaller than the left side, but improving. Also, when he checked out the range of motion of her hip, etc., there was no stiffness in her right side and she had a full range of motion...both sides were the same! This is very good, and the first time that there has been no resistance/stiffness when they check her hip. Wahoo! Also, and here is where I insert the drumroll..........NO MORE BRACE!!! NO MORE BRACE!!! NO MORE BRACE!!! Can you tell I am relieved?? Although she still wears it and is mostly cooperative, she is starting to get somewhat annoyed with it. Also, it gives her a rash if don't put pants on her. He explained that if it was 'easy to do' than we would keep using it, but there was no clinical evidence that long-term bracing at this point is effective. She has been wearing it for nine months. He said that if she was showing signs of annoyance with it now, it wouldn't be long before she'd be ripping it off and chucking it out of her crib anyway. James asked three times on the way home why we were keeping Katie's brace if she didn't have to wear it any more. Since I am a Cheyney, and we are weird like that, I will be putting it in her memory box. So, overall, it was a good visit. She isn't 'out of the woods' yet, but it was more encouraging than the last visit. Thank you God!

And here are a few pictures of the alternative route I had to find when I got lost:

Its always a nice touch to see grates over the windows when you drop your kids off at daycare. Very reassuring.

The road I got stuck on also had trolley tracks, so that made for extra fun! Make way for the trolley! And at random intervals the road would split up and join back together. On the right, you will see another nice touch: razor wire woven through the decorative thing-a-ma-jig along the fence of a really old church. For all you Colorado peeps out there, this isn't even the scary part of town. You can tell I've been here a while because I wasn't even scared driving through here. Not even when I saw a really burly woman looking to start a fight with a scrawny guy under the EL.