Medical Update

Today I brought Ally back to the orthopedist and learned the results of Ally's Recent MRI. The MRI showed that Ally has an issue with her growth plate in her heel, it's called Sever's Disease.  In addition she has developed a pain syndrome in her ankle. It's the pain syndrome more than the growth plate issue that is currently causing her such extreme pain, it's essentially a problem with the nerves at her injury site. Hopefully the pain syndrome will go away with continued physical therapy that is targeting the nerves, rather than the muscles and tendons. 
The orthopedist isn't actually overly concerned with the Sever's because Ally doesn't have any pain in her heel/growth plate area. So she thinks that if we can get the pain syndrome conquered Ally will be back to normal. With lots of stretching and understanding the cues of her condition she sees no reason that Ally can't return to gymnastics and dance as soon as the pain is gone. She told us she thought with new targeted physical therapy the pain should be dramatically less in just a few more weeks. We have an appointment to the Pain Clinic at Children's Hospital on January 5.

We go back in 3 weeks for a follow up appointment with the orthopedist.

We talked to the orthopedist about the "extra bone" and she confirmed that the bone is there, it's clear on the X-rays and in the MRI, but the MRI doesn't show any irritation around that bone, which leads her to concur that it isn't the problem. It seems that 4 weeks ago the presence of the bone, and the location of the pain made the diagnosis of that as the cause, a pretty sure thing, but then when the pain didn't go away, and has actually gotten worse, and we got and MRI, the MRI showed a totally different issue. 

We do have a prescription for a l.idocaine patch for Ally to wear that should give her some immediate relief for the pain. Her pain has been so severe that she is struggling to go to sleep at night and is having difficulty concentrating at school. 

Ally is pretty frustrated about the whole thing and commented after the appointment to me "it just seems like the doctor didn't really say what's wrong and how to make it better." We talked about it some more and I think she understands more now, but it is frustrating. Later today then she played dolls with Becky and all the dolls went to the doctor with ankle pain and none of the doctors could make the pain go away. Pretty telling to us about her state of mind.
She's getting more and more worried that the pain won't go away.

She is supposed to wear the boot at school but not all the time at home.

I took her out for ice cream after the appointment - she was thrilled to get Candy Cane ice cream!