The rest of my pregnancy went by and we both completely forgot about finding the club foot in the ultrasound. I had other more serious things to think about with my dad fighting lung cancer.
9/5/01- Baby Kathleen, whom we have nicknames Kathy was born. No one noticed her feet right after birth, not even my doctor. It wasn't until they took her to the warmer to clean her off and do the drops in her eyes. While she was laying there I looked over and noticed her feet they were both severely turned in. My first comment was, "Oh my gosh she has got club feet in both her feet!"
Our pediatrician came in to check Kathy shortly after she was born and immediately noticed her club feet. She immediately started the referal process to get an Orthopedic Surgeon in to see us.
9/6/01- The Orthopedic Surgeon came into our hospital room to evaluate Kathy. He immediately did the first casting on her. These casts were plaster, boy did they make her feel heavy! He also reffered us to another doctor in the practice who's specialty is feet. So we were given an appt for 9/11/01 to see him and get the second casts done.
9/11/01- What an appointment!! They forgot to tell us we needed to remove the casts first! So we spend like an hour soaking poor Kathy in a bucket of water trying to get the casts soft enough to pull apart and take them off. Finally we got them off and the doctor came in to do the new casts. This time around Kathy got the soft casts(fiberglass). The doctor also told us that in his opinion Kathy would need surgery to completely get her feet to turn. We were also told her left foot was rigid. The doctor also gave us a referal to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona.
9/18/01- Back again for the 3rd casting. Kathy really faught them this time while they were trying to get her new casts on. The physicians assistant couldn't believe how strong such a tiny baby was! Poor Kathy fell sound asleep as soon as they were done.
9/25/01- Back again for casing round 4. Kathy faught them even more this time around. She faught so much that the doctor couldn't manipulate her one foot as much as he wanted to. We go back 10/2/01 to see the doctor here, then 10/8 we see the doctor in Phoenix. Then we start going every 2 weeks. Starting to think we need to take her somewhere else.
10/8- our 1st appt w/ Dr Milliner. The appt went great and they seemed surprised she had fiberglass casts on. I am much happier now that she has plaster casts on, think we'll be seing more improvement.
10/9- Mailed application in for Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake City.
10/15- next appt in Phoenix with Dr Milliner
10/22- yet another appt with Dr Milliner
10/29- another appt w/ Dr. Milliner
11/5- appt w/ Dr Milliner. Also last week we got our appt made with Dr Santora and called to set up the travel.
11/12- Our last appt with Dr Milliner. We told him we were taking Kathy to Shriners and his reaction was, "Well what do you think they can do different than what I am doing?" Since I didn't want to get into the whole ponsetti argument we just said we wanted another opinion. At a previous appt we had found out Dr Milliner didn't think very highly of the ponseti method. I am very thankful we decided to not listen to Dr Milliner's opinion and apply at Shriners anyway. Also Daddy's first trip to the dr with us.
11/12 - When we got home from Phoenix we had a message from Shriners Hospital. I have to call Wade, the care coordinator back in the morning.
11/13- After playing phone tag we have an appt on 11/29 with Dr Santora for evaluation. I am so excited that we got her into Shriners. I have been searching for a Ponseti method doctor. That's when we heard about Dr. Santora at Shriners Intermountain Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.
11/29- Ponseti casting #1 - our first visit to Shriners Intermountain hospital. We had to drive down to Phoenix last night. Then stay with friends. I was up at 5 am to be out the door by 6 am so we could be at the airport by 6:30am for an 8:30am flight. Kathy was seen by Dr Santora and had her first Ponsetti cast put on. Wow we couldn't believe how much her foot was manipulated. Can't wait to see the results in 2 weeks.
12/13- Ponseti casting #2- second visit to Dr Santora. Wow what a change in Kathy's feet! Now I really can't wait to see her feet next Friday when we have our first appt at Shriner's Lexington hospital with Dr Talwalkar. We are doing a temp transfer since we will be in Kentucky for 6 weeks visiting with my parents.
12/21- Ponseti casting #3 - our first appt with Dr Talwalkar in Lexington. Kathy's feet are looking great.
12/31- Ponseti casting #4 - our second appt with Dr Talwalkar. Really seing improvement in Kathy's feet.
1/7- Ponseti casting #5- her feet are looking better every cast change:) Not much longer till her tenotomy.
1/14- Ponseti casting #6 - WOW!! Her right foot is looking like a "normal" foot!! Dr. Talwalkar says she will be ready to have the tenotomy on her right foot when we go back to Salt Lake on 2/7. Her left foot is just a little farther behind that. So looking like she will have her tenotomy sometime in February. We only have 2 more appts in Lexington now.
1/21- Ponseti casting #7- Not much longer and she'll be ready for surgery.
