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!

Roxie's Birthday Party

Guatemala Girls this month was a celebration for Roxie's 9th birthday. She told her mom she wanted to have a yarn party. Her mom, Mary Beth and brother Charlie did a string (yarn) maze for each girl to wrap up. Charlie had one too.

The contestants!

The work in progress. They worked so hard and carefully getting all the yarn wound back up.

And were such good sports about the picture taking.

As usual it was a great gathering of friends.

Medical Week

It's been a medical filled week for us. 

Becky had a test done to try and determine the cause of her cough.

She had a sensor placed in her throat that sent a wireless signal to a small box she had to carry around for 24 hours.

That is her when she first got home with a red blinking light in her mouth the light stopped blinking after about the first hour.

Ally had her physical yesterday, and then today I brought Ally to see an orthopedist about her ankle. We had an appointment next week but Ally has been complaining the pain was worse and today the nurse at school called to ask if she could give Ally some medicine for it because she was hurting so much it was hard to concentrate at school. I called and got an appointment with another doctor at the Sports Medicine Clinic at Children's Hospital. The visit went well, the doctor thinks Ally might have some nerves causing the pain, but ordered an MRI to try and determine this.

We were able to get an MRI later today and so we went home for dinner and tree decorating and then back to the hospital.

Becky and I feel very lucky to live so close to such a world class hospital, people travel from all over to go there and for us it's less than 5 minutes away.

We watched a great video on MRIs for kids before we went back, and read some information on line.

Ally said it was more comfortable to sit on mama rather than in a chair next to mama.

Ally and I had to wear scrubs for the MRI.

I'd never worn scrubs before and I must say they are as uncomfortable as they are unflattering. 

We took a selfie before we went in to the imaging room. They let me in there with Ally. I just sat next to the machine with ear plug in to reduce the noise. It was loud in there!

Ally did great and we were done in 30 minutes. She got to wear headphones and watch movie during the test.

After we left the hospital we offered to take Ally out for ice cream or something else. She wanted something else. So we went to Target and let her pick something out. She chose these Crazee Speakers the act like fountains the water inside moves depending on the music.

And for the record here is Ally's X-ray:

We get the results of the MRI on Wednesday and in the meantime have some new things to try and alleviate the pain. Hopefully we can figure this out and get Ally's ankle pain free soon.

Annual Physical

Today Ally had her 9 year old well visit to the doctor.

She weighed in at 52 pounds and is 49 inches tall. She is doing great on her own growth curve and other than her ankle is a healthy kid. 

Her pediatrician gave us some advice and encouragement for when we go back to the orthopedist next week. 

Here is a selfie she took over the weekend,

I love her so much.

Advent Season!

Ally loves to open her Advent Calendar. 

Every day she opens a new box and gets some fun treat.

A hamster eraser on the day she got her actual live hamster pet!

Guatemalan Worry Dolls

A dollar

Tickets to see Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer live musical!

Some Shopkins

 

More Shopkins 

A rope bracelet from Nantucket!

So much fun.

Tea with Rosa and American Girl Dolls

A couple weeks ago, Ally and I attended a tea at the Constitution with Rosa and her mom, Julie. The girls's dolls were with us too.

It was a very sunny warm December day. 

Lovely plates of sweets and cider to drink, not just tea.

The girls decorated cookies.

Ally's was a Christmas tree and Rosa's was the Santa.

They had someeeiod dancer, and dancing lessons! Ally is still wearing her boot so she watched. 

They needed more people so even I gave it a shot at dancing.

The girls had their picture taken with a Marine. He was quite specific in that he was not a soldier. 

The Navy had their tree lighting that night, and Santa Claus rode in on a Jeep to help celebrate.

It was a really fun time.

Quick Update

This week we added a member to our family. Ally has been begging for a hamster and before Thanksgiving after watching lots of videos and reading up on them we agreed if she used her own money and she was the one to take care of it she could get a hamster.

Ally was so excited to go get one. She is so confident and yet gentle when handling the hamster.

The pet store recommended playing with it in the bath tub until the hamster and Ally got used to each other, because it is a contained space.

Can you tell how much Ally loves Penguin.

We keep telling we love Ally so much.