Splint Free :)

Hooray!  We went to see Dr. Caudle yesterday and got the go-ahead to take off the splint on her arm.  He thought things were looking good.  He didn't take any X-Rays, but clinically thought things were looking well.

Molly had a speech evaluation yesterday and things went very well.  There are some sounds that she is not able to make: Milk = Milt, Bucket = Buttet, Spoon = Suoon and some "F" sounds are off.  She also used to say "Shish" instead of Fish, so there is at least one example of improvement.  A normal score for pronunciation would be anything under a 10 and she scored an 11.  The therapist thought this was fine and that unless it was impeding our ability to understand her that she would correct it on her own.  So, one less thing to worry about :)

They also did a series of expressive and receptive language tests with her and she did exceptionally well.  I am not writing this to brag, but rather to express my fear of having an unusually advanced little girl.  The Speech Therapist was supposed to continue the test until Molly bottomed out and could no longer answer the questions.  Well, we were at the 5-year-old level and she still hadn't bottomed out.  The therapist recommended that we stop, since it had already been an hour and there wasn't any need to continue.  Yikes.  Molly was asked verbal questions and also asked to point to different parts of a picture book the therapist had with her.  She was asked to repeat 5+ word sentences, which Molly was able to do rather easily.  She was asked to point out "his dog" given a picture of a boy and a girl each holding a dog, Molly was able to point out who had more ice cream or apples etc. and who was taller.  Molly was able to point out which picture would have shown what it was like outside when "Cindy" got all wet, or what it would look like at nighttime.  Molly seemed to ignore the therapist when the question was too easy and it would take many requests to get her to answer, but when it was a challenging question you could see her studying the picture and really thinking about her answer.  

This is all good news, but has me quite nervous about her placement for preschool when she turns 3.  I am hopeful that we will be able to find a public preschool to provide a stimulating environment for Molly with mostly typical students, as opposed to a predominantly special needs environment.

Her ability to interact with us is progressing by the moment.  She is now able to recite whole pages of some of her favorite books and has also started singing most of the lyrics to some children's songs as well.

Bedtime and naptime have improved a little bit in the past few days and we are hoping this will continue.

Stubborn and doing well

Molly went in the hot tub for the first time and had a ball.  She did a lot of kicking, but told me she didn't want to stand because her legs still hurt.  

She is giving us a very hard time at bedtime and naptime and trying all the delay tactics she can think of .   I am exhausted with all of the battles and hoping that this is a short lived phase.  It is hard because she is saying that she hurts, but only around bedtime and naptime and I don't know if it is another tactic or whether she notices pain when she is still and alone.  

I have been assured by the pediatrician that she should take a nap until she is 4 or 5 and some of my friends have gone through these phases as well and still take a nap.  

We went to a metabolic dentist (Dr. Wright) yesterday to enroll her in a DI (Dentinogenesis Imperfecta - brittle teeth) study.  He thought her front teeth were starting to wear and we will probably need to cap them in the next 6-9 months.  He did give us some hope that occasionally insurance has paid for this procedure.  If they won't it will be $5,000+ out of pocket, so we are going to begin applying for it now.

Good News From Dr. Esposito :)

Dr. Esposito just called and gave us a good report on Molly's X-Rays. He thought her Humerus (upper arm) was almost completely healed and we should be able to take the splint off in another 2 weeks or so. It has already been 4.5 weeks, so I guess we can make it another couple of weeks. He though the Tibias looked straight and saw some healing on the back side of the osteotomy (break) sites. He said that often if there is any bow that the front side of the bone tends to have trouble healing. If she has not had significant healing in another 4 weeks (2 months post-op) that we will look into getting a bone stimulator to improve healing.

He thought that things looked good enough to try some water therapy, assuming that Molly could tolerate it without pain. We will probably jump into the hot-tub tomorrow and see what happens. We can try some weight-bearing in the water, but not on the land for another 2 weeks or so.

Molly has been having tantrums today and it is hard to know what they are about. Everything has become a negotiation and she seems to want everything immediately and always her way. I suppose a lot of this is her age and a little of this is her personality. Her feistyness makes life very challenging, but also very entertaining. She has been working very hard on coming up with as many delay tactics for bedtime as possible, which has been exhausting. We have slowly been eliminating them from her repertoire and tonight was the first time in a while that she went to bed without a lot of battles.

She got a pair of Crocs (shoes) yesterday and they have been a new favorite thing. She has been without shoes for over a month due to the fracture and then the surgery and I think she is really enjoying being like the other kids. Our neighbors all just got Crocs, so I think it is especially nice that hers are exactly like her friends.

She is using the potty a couple of times a day generally when she needs to poop, but still does not seem particularly interested in making it a daily routine.

Ups and Downs

Molly has been in good spirits for the most part, but we have had some bad days. I think some of the days were because we dialed down her pain medication and sometimes she needed more than I was giving her. She has had some pain complaints in her feet and fingers. On several occasions she has burst into tears during a meal and complained of pain in her finger, but when I ask her to point to where the pain is she says "it's fine".

She was playing with her developmental therapist yesterday and tried to stand up and screamed out in pain. I contacted Dr. Esposito and he said there was a chance she bent the rod, but most likely things would be OK. We went and had X-Rays taken just to be sure. The local ortho felt that everything looked OK, but we are waiting to hear from Dr. Esposito for confirmation.

Molly has been in relatively good spirits today, with the exception of some toddler tantrums. She scared us today a few times crying out because of a finger and then Howie (our pug) jumped up on her feet while she was in the highchair. My nerves are shot, but she is holding up well.

Jim is in California for work and his mom, "Gram", is here to help.

We realized that French Fries are apparently called "French Eyes", which we think is very cute. She has been doing a lot of pretend play and really likes pretending to cook food and say "it's hot, hot, hot" and loves to pretend to drive on the school bus and have her toys get on the "bus" with her.

Steady Improvement

Molly has seemed more and more comfortable as the week has progressed. She still needs her pain medication, but it seems to be effective for a lot longer.

We had a rather "interesting" afternoon yesterday. We were trying to organize the house while Molly took a nap. I was installing a drying rack on the wall in the laundry room. I used a stud finder and then began drilling. The fourth hole hit the hot water main line and scalding hot water began shooting straight out of the wall into the laundry room. It was quite a comical scene as my Mom and I found some buckets and began catching the water and screaming "I need another bucket" until my Mom figured out how to shut the water off on the water heater. Oops!

Thankfully, the plumber came this morning and it was a very easy fix.

Settling In

Our flight home was long, but thankfully both flights took off on time. We couldn't get the car seat unclipped from the first flight and they had to cut the seatbelt in order to break it free! We rushed through the Dallas airport to get to our second flight and arrived to hear them say that they didn't have seats for us. This was extremely frustrating since we had confirmed our flights and seats the day before. Thankfully they "found" seats for us on the plane, unfortunately they were in the last row on the plane.

We were so happy to get home. Everyone had a good night's sleep and Molly only woke up once, took some pain medication and went right back to sleep. She was tired, but in good spirits on Sunday.

We took her splints off yesterday and kept them off for a few hours to give her skin some air, in hopes of avoiding pressure sores.

Last night was a bit rough. She didn't want to go to sleep and was complaining of pain. After 40 minutes of patting and rocking she finally fell asleep. She woke up around 2:30 complaining of pain. We gave her medicine and took her splints off to check for pressure sores.
Everything looked OK, so it is hard to know what was going on. Jim and I had to take turns the rest of the night lying on the floor with her. She wasn't all that fussy, but couldn't seem to get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

We went to see Dr. Caudle, our local orthopedist, and they removed her bandages and said everything looked good. She has the beginning of a pressure sore forming on one of her ankles and seems fairly comfortable without the splints on, so they recommended we not put them back on. We'll keep the arm cuff on her upper arm for another several weeks while the bone heals. She hasn't had the splints on since 10 this morning and seems to be doing OK.

No splints is another big step on our recovery path. Here's hoping we all have a better night's sleep tonight. :)