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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Run Forrest, Run!!

Today was the big day. The day that Brody got his leg braces. When the guy walked in with them in his hand, I was thinking "Those sure are tiny to cost so much!" I fit them in my purse they are so small. I guess I didn't realize how tiny his little feet and legs are.

When we first started putting them on him, he was actually excited. He kept calling them shoes and thought they were pretty neat. They come in 2 parts. One part is for his ankle and just slips on like a little boot. This part doesn't seem to bother him at all. It's going to correct and strengthen his weak ankles. The second part slips around the boot and goes up his leg. This will hopefully prevent his knees from locking out as he walks. This is the part he is not a fan of. He can't wear this part without shoes and because they are a little bulky, he has to wear shoes 2 sizes too big. So his foot has to be crammed into the shoe and that obviously did not make him happy.

We have to start at today with an hour total. Then add an hour each day until he's up to at least 8 hours a day. This way its a gradual process for him to get accustomed to wearing them so they don't hurt him or cause irritation.

We weren't completely sure what to expect before today. Now we know. And we see that its not going to be easy. He's not going to like them. It's going to make life harder. But, its what's best for him and we have to stick to it and make it work. So we must have patience with him. We prayed this morning before we went to the appointment that he would have a good attitude about it and not fight us on them. It's going to take continued prayer to get us through this process that could potentially take up to a year.

Here are a couple of photos from the morning.





While we were waiting, we gave him his new pair of shoes that we bought for him to wear with the braces. Turns out that they won't work, but he was excited as you can see.


It looks like he has a sad face in this pic, but he was actually doing his "cheese" face.


Close up of the ankle boot part.


Brody was trying to help so he stuck it on himself. The part on his foot right now is the leg brace.


Practicing walking in the ankle boot. He can't walk without shoes in the complete brace.

I don't have any pictures yet of him in the complete brace. I'm sure there will be numerous posts about this journey so you'll get a chance to see what it will look like normally.





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