New Things to Pray About

We have been in a period of a relative lull on the medical front for Isaiah. I'm thankful for that as the school decisions and IEP process were enough to focus on for a few months. We have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon and a bunch of other people (therapists, orthotists, etc) on Wednesday morning to assess Isaiah's current mobility situation. Unfortunately, he is having more and more trouble with walking due to the inward rotation of his leg bones. He still flies around with his walker, but it is becoming more difficult to avoid tripping over his own inward turning feet and he is having a harder time pulling to a stand.

We will be discussing a couple options and I would appreciate prayers for wisdom for the doctor, therapists and us. One surgery we know will eventually happen is a femoral derotation osteotomy (as well as one for Isaiah's left tibia as well). This is a pretty intense surgery in which the doctors physically untwist the leg bone and re-set it into the hip socket. Major surgery, major recovery. Isaiah's neurologist wants us to wait until he is at least 8 or 9 so that the surgery won't have to possibly be repeated. His orthopedic surgeon is comfortable doing the surgery whenever Isaiah's mobility begins to go backwards (we are already getting there).

I've been wondering how this bone surgery will correct the problem when the bones are turning inward due to muscle spasticity which won't be corrected by a bone surgery. We will be discussing a couple different ideas to address the muscle issues. One of these ideas requires a different surgery that would install a medication pump to provide a continuous flow of medication into Isaiah's spine to decrease the muscle tightness.

We would really appreciate prayers for wisdom on Wednesday morning.