Walking Spica Free

Dear Little Angel,

 

We now find ourselves approaching the conclusion of being cast free for an entire week. In the course of this last week you have pushed to regain  much of the freedom that was stripped from your list of things to do the day you were placed into your first cast a little over six months ago.  In the first twenty four hours after your legs were freed, we found you walking across the kitchen floor with slow labored cautious steps.  Your leg from your first surgery is moving freely with no signs of limited motion post surgery; however the hip from this last round of surgery is stiff an unable to bend at the knee.  Any attempt to bend your knee and tears fill your eyes as you explain, "Daddy, don't touch! My leg hurts!"

 

Your first attempts to walk concluded much like the first time you tried to walk after your second casting, within seconds your leg gave way as to the floor you dropped crying in pain.  Picking you up to rub your legs I paused to offer words of comfort, "Sweetie, it's okay.  You need to move slowly so your legs can gain strength again."  Immediately you counter, "Put me down! I walk now!" 

 

There is little I can say or do to slow your determination to walk again.  If I tell you not to stand or to try walking, big tears fill your eyes and run down your cheeks as you exclaim, "Daddy, you break my heart." 

 

With almost a week passed, your strength has seen you through a number a falls.  Each time you stand and begin again, until at last you find yourself walking.  To this, as always you declare, "Watch me, I did it!"  Your walking is improving each day.  Your stiff knee now bends a little with each step and your walking takes no concentration as you easily cross the floor.  Able to now walk with no help, it is common for you to walk over and over again around the chair in the living room.  At last count, in one routine you completed nearly fifty laps, only to find your knee slightly swollen the next day from all the excursion, but even this only slowed you slightly in your efforts to parade around the house.  I imagine within only a few weeks there will be little evidence of the stiff joints and weakened hip.