We have been very busy lately, with many ups and downs.
First off, we took our first family vacation last month that didn't involve a family or hospital visit. We made a relatively last minute decision to take a week off and drive to the beach. On the first day of the vacation, we bumped Molly's leg on a chair, causing a fracture. We try to go out of our way to make sure we keep having fun after fractures, but this one clearly bothered Molly. Before bed that night, she asked "Why does this always happen to me on special occasions?" It was heartbreaking to hear this, as it was clear that she had been thinking about it a lot. Luckily, this one wasn't a "bad" fracture, so we all still had a great vacation.
A couple weeks later, her leg started to feel better and she started standing and using the walker out of the house more than here wheelchairs.
Then memorial day weekend, we got a new puppy. We are working with a trainer to train the dog to be able to act as Molly's service dog when needed. The dog has been great, already learning to obey commands at 10 weeks old. The trainer gave us high marks for the work so far.
But as great as the new puppy is, it also comes with new stress. Every time we took the dog outside, Molly wanted to be able to come out and help. We have a ramp into the house, but the doors and transition still make it very stressful, since even a small mis-step can have such large consequences. But part of being a parent to a child with brittle bones is trying to not say no to everything just because fractures are possible. In this case, Molly seemed determined to be a part of this, so we had been letting her walk out the door with us.
Unfortunately, last weekend, Molly caught her foot on the lip of the door sill while standing in front of the door and broke her ankle. We don't know exactly what happened, but a week later it is still a big fracture from a pain point of view. After the first night, she seemed to be in a lot of pain, so Sarah took her to the hospital for some xrays. There was nothing obvious in the xrays, other than a slight non-union she has had in her tibia for a long time, and a possible fracture lower in her ankle. It seemed like the splint we were using wasn't working, so we decided to put on a cast. (we generally try to avoid casts, as they are heavy - which can lead to more fractures, and they can lead to more atrophy if left on too long) After a day with the cast, the pain was was clearly worse. We went back to the Dr's office, and decided to take the cast back off. After taking the cast off, things have started to get better. We don't know what exactly the problem was. Either the cast didn't go up high enough to immobilize the whole tibia, or it was too tight on some part of her ankle.
It is a week later now, and it is still causing her some pain. We have been setting timers to remind us to keep up with pain medicine so that we don't get behind. On smaller fractures, we would usually be down to just occasional motrin and tylenol by now.
We have a couple splints made for that leg, so we have been able to let Molly use one in the water, and another when she is dry. This has allowed her to still enjoy her time in the hot tub. She has become very comfortable swimming underwater. Even in the water with a splint on, she is preventing her foot from touching anything right now, standing on one leg.
It has been a lot of ups and downs, but hopefully things will continue to get better from here.
I know we are behind on posting any new pictures or video. We have still been taking them, but we are really behind on filtering and posting any of it. Hopefully we can get some up soon.
