Range of Motion: Part 2. GOOD NEWS!

So, when we left off it was the week before Christmas and we had the surgery to manipulate Ava's hip and knee joints to see if there was anything that could be loosened up or that would show on the arthrogram as hindering her range of motion.

Unfortunately, after the surgery nothing changed.  Ava's ROM continued to hover around 60 degrees no matter what we did.  We had a nice quiet Christmas and she actually had a week off from PT appointments because her therapists were both on vacation.

It was around Christmas week when I started to question whether all of the decisions we had made had truly been the right ones.  What if we had made the wrong choice?  What if we never should have done the ex fix surgery to begin with?  It sure seems like she's WORSE off now than she was before! At least she could bend her hip before the ex fix.  At least she could sit comfortably!  What if what we did made things WORSE long term?  Maybe we should have just done the core decompression and not the ex fix.  Were all those months of hell for nothing?  All the pin care?  All the horrible showers, the sleepless nights, the walkers, wheelchairs, crutches....all of those months and medical bills and physical therapy and stress and it's WORSE???  I cried one day in the car on my way to take her to the last PT appointment on Christmas Eve.  Here we were, on Christmas Eve, going to physical therapy.  Physical therapy that didn't seem to be doing ANYTHING.  Maybe we had made a decision that would negatively impact my child forever.  And our family had to endure months of hell for what???  It was a low point, I'm not going to lie.

And then last Friday, January 2nd, 2015, Ava had her first PT appointment of the new year.  My mother took her because I was in Georgia visiting my sister.  I got a phone call from my mom and when I answered, it was Ava!  She said, "Mommy!  Guess what my number is!  GUESS!"  I dared to hope.  I took a deep breath and literally closed my eyes. She yelled, "SEVENTY FIVE!!!" 75 degrees!  OMG!  I couldn't believe it.  She had made progress!  FINALLY!  The next day, she had PT again and called to tell me that she made it to 80 degrees!  At this point, I was in shock.  Two days in a row?  Progress?  Seemed like a dream.  We took a few pictures during our nightly stretches and a video showing her knee bend.  It's much more fluid and her hip is staying up past 60 degrees all of a sudden!

And just yesterday, I may have cried big, fat, happy tears when she came home from PT and announced that her hip flexion was 90 degrees.  I honestly wasn't sure that it would ever happen.  Ninety degrees!!!!  Knee flexion 73 degrees.  It's happening.  She's really making progress!!!!

I do still have one major concern and that is Leg Length Discrepancy.  Since we did not do a bone-cutting surgery like an Osteotomy, I didn't think that there would be a major difference.  But Ava seems to have a BIG difference in hers.  :(

The next time we meet with Dr. S, that will be my first question.  Trying not to worry about things now that we are moving in the right direction, but it's hard after a year of worrying.  LOL!

90 degrees YAY!!!!