The question of AFO's

So we attended five weeks of Ability camp with two lead conductors who absolutely do not believe in AFO's. They for sure said that Cassie does not need her SMO on her right foot. They feel her right foot is perfect! Most of my family know I am having an extremely hard time deciding what is best. The Macmaster-Chedoke team has requested Cassie wear AFO's all the time. Cassie has had Botox, Serial Casting and CE in the last six months so as a mother I can't really say what has helped the most and maybe all three things have contributed to this wonderful strong girl who is walking really really well. I can say I am super pleased with Cassie's gait, her strength and her mobility. Her overall fitness and her eagerness to keep working out. I am pleased visually that her left calf is not a tiny stick leg and her small left foot is growing and looking better in size. I think the AFO's were weakening the calf muscles, weakening a lot of muscles in her foot really and stopping some growth of her foot. Upon return home I found Dr. Sloat in Ancaster a chiropractor who is supportive of my exercise approach. Cassie has seen her three times now. She has a plan for more weight bearing on the left leg. More exercises including a small trampoline that Cassie walks on in bear feet. Cassie got her new trampoline as an early easter bunny present from mommy and daddy. Julia got an exercise ball and weights. I am empowered to believe I want my daughter out of AFO's more of the time. Cassie wore her orthopedic sandals all weekend and after school. She did all her trampoline exercise in bare feet. She walked on her toes and heels and stretched her foot all weekend. She is learning to walk around toeing out and we have all walked like ducks around the house acting goofy with her over the weekend. Dr. Sloat works on stimulating the pelvis and watching her leg length discrepancy and assists me with the left foot. I feel much better about this approach as the orthopedic surgeon freaked me out when she once suggested if Cassie's left leg was two short they do surgery to stop the growth of the good leg. I absolutely do not want this procedure. I hope the chiropractor can help with the leg length discrepancies and avoid any extreme medical procedures such as stopping the growth of the right leg. Cassie and I agreed she would wear her AFO's to school every day. At school she is concentrating so hard on her program she can't possibly worry about correcting her own foot and concentrate on school work. We will continue with our own individual plan of no AFO's in the evening and weekend. I feel good about the decision. I will continue to talk to her team of PT, OT, physiatrist and orthopedic specialist about our decision. I want to listen to every opinion and take from them all what I think is best for my girl in her present situation.
I like having the left leg and foot look more equal in size to the right and I like Cassie's abilities to build muscle in the weak left foot and leg when it is not constricted in the AFO. The chiropractor continues to work on her foot. I mobilize the calcaneous four times a day and Cassie keeps wiggling her feet and trying to get her movement back as much as she can. My husband seems happy with this plan for now as well. The rolling over of the left ankle is a constant problem but Cassie is correcting her foot more and more as she learns and strengthens the foot. I want to ask the team to get rid of the right SMO all together and I will ask the orthopedic specialist on April 20, 2009. Stay tuned.

In the areas of education and learning to read I have made some positive steps forward. We have met the teacher two times. Chris attended the meeting which was so helpful the two Chris's (Mr. Chris Moase and Chris Fruck) seem to understand and relate well to each other. The teacher has backed Cassie up on her Dolch words and is stressing five words a day. He backed up her reading level to books that Cassie is doing extremly well with and Cassie is coming around again with her phonics, trying to sound out and less guessing. The entire family is in the grove. Julia made rhymes and read with Cassie. Daddy did all her flash cards and read with Cassie and Mommy read with Cassie all weekend. Cassie was so pleased when she read a sentence herself we all freaked and praised her and made games and acted silly and she loved the attention. The school OT, learning resource teacher and I meet on April 24 and we asked the three EA's and teacher and principal to attend. I called the school board to find out about getting the neurodevelopmental pyschological testing and if it can get done in a timely manner (they have dragged their feet long enough). If it can not get done I will take the advice of my family friend physician and I will go to Toronto and pay for the testing myself or something similar to help diagnosing learning disability. I believe understanding Cassie's learning disability and having this test is the key to helping Cassie with her memory problems, her ability to retain and retrieve information and the correct learning strategies to use at school. Cassie got another zero on the spelling test. The teacher changed his strategy to hoping Cassie could figure out the first sound of the word (Thanks for doing that). I knew the words were hard because Julia could not spell them with out practice. Apparently they are the science words the children in grade 2 are doing science experiments. I will continue to advocate for Cassie. I can't really see the point in trying to memorize words every evening over and over again with no success. It frustrates us all. We started teaching Cassie how to find the word in the dictionary instead. Again only a mother who is trying to utilize her time well. this is just my opinion.
Stay tuned for the battle to get a timely neuropsychological test done. I hear you all saying your kind supportive words in my head. I am pleased to have the love and support of so many. One step at a time. One meeting at a time. I will not get cranky with any one who does not get it.