Step in Time

Dana has a good sleep last night without much pain, just the odd spasm and without taking Valium, which is a vast improvement on the previous night. She even tolerated her Knee Immobilizers for an hour as instructed by Blaire without too much complaining.

We have physio with Mike at 11am and hope the splints have been shipped from Washington overnight. Sitting in reception which is becoming familiar to us now and getting to know the receptionist quite well, Mike appears with his usual bright smile, hippy beads and a bright red t-shirt with a logo on the front which reads SDR Party 2011 and on the back read Mad Mike 1, which suits him very well. We chat as we walk into the therapy room about his t-shirt and about the party next year which we shall also be attending. The conversation moves on to the splints which haven’t been shipped due to the suppliers not completing the order in time. Mike is straight on the phone to ensure the splints will be on tonights shipment and assures us it will. Now where have I heard this before!!! We take no chances and as soon as physio is finished we will make our way to orthotics just to make sure.

Mike assessed Dana pain level for yesterday and today. I said she had not wanted to have any pain relief last night or this morning and Mike suggested she should take something before therapy just to take the edge off and make physio as pain free as possible. Dana is tough and does fight through the pain yet on the other hand she will think it hurts before it actually does, so physiologically it’s no bad thing giving her some medication. The session started a complete disaster as Mike suggested Dana was going to kick a ball in a net. Dana was really struggling with shuffling forward on her wheelchair so Mike could transfer her onto a normal chair. She was shouting it was hurting her heel cord or hurting her hamstrings. Dana watches to many hospital programmes and listens too well when the doctors are describing things to us. Other kids would say my leg hurts or my foot hurts. Every few minutes she would say ‘I’m having a spasm’. I don’t deny she has spasms and also I do know she was thinking it was going to hurt before it may of done. I felt like a sergeant major and hate doing it but I know she can do it and more importantly she needs to know she can do it. Mike does the chair transfer which was quite hard work, so decides to go back a few stages and builds up to where he intended to start from this morning. He gets Dana to lift her legs alternately on the spot, then step side to side, then move her feet around the chair. Finally he lifts alternate legs until she feels a pull, to give her a stretch. We get to the stage where Mike lifts Dana and she tries to march on the spot, then he makes her transfer her weight from side to side. After all this, what seems so easy to us yet probably seems like climbing a mountain to Dana he asks her when he lifts and takes her weight, to move her feet and step towards another chair positioned to the side. She attempts this several times until Mike is comfortable Dana is able to do this. She is exhausted and listens to Mike explain the more times she does this the less the painful it will be. Again we reassure Dana it will be ok and she is doing really well. All this takes 50 mins and the last 10 mins is taken up with the initial objective of kicking a ball into a net while sitting on a chair, which she does beautifully. I feel as if I’ve run the 10k again as you are concentrating on what Mike is explaining to you, hanging on his every word and looking how he is holding Dana. You absorb so much it all becomes a blur and you go though the days physio again later in the day making sure you have understood everything.

Once physio has finished we head to orthotics and speak to Keith to get a definitive answer on the splints. He confirms they are on a special order and will be shipped tonight. One of his team will need to fit them on Dana as she will have an ankle splint fitted in a long legged splint. Not sure how that will work, soon see tomorrow. Then we have the joy of shoe shopping to buy shoes to fit over the splints. These shoes will be cheap as the long legged splints will be discarded after 6 weeks. You can only imagine now when we are in the shoe shop as Dana will have her sights on a pair of shoes which will either be impractical or expensive and I will look for the cheapest but look ok for the time she needs them. Oh happy days!!

When we get back to the hotel we do repeat the mornings physio again and initial talk through the steps until clear of the process which reduces Dana’s anxiety. We do a lot of sit to stand and the more she does, the more she feels comfortable. I am reminded by Dana, she is 2 days post op, as if that will make a difference.

One of the most interesting things I have noticed is how hard the physio’s push the children and what seems perhaps not suitable in your experience actually is very appropriate. As an example when Dana had a tendon release back in the UK she was in plaster for 6 weeks. That’s 6 weeks of no physio at all. After Dana had her hamstring lengthened and heel cord, there is no plaster, as Dr Dobbs said it hinders a childs progress and on day 2 post op they are riding a bike for half an hour.

Dana wanted to socialise this evening so after dinner we head down stairs and meet other UK families who are at the same stage as us. It good seeing Dana relaxed and laughing while I’m talking to another mum. We share our experiences about our time here which to me feels like it is happening to someone else. We both feel a bit unsettled still, although there has been plenty to keep us both occupied. I am sure when we eventually return to the UK I will look back and think how did we do all this, and most importantly how did Dana manage to be so brave and tough and do what was asked of her.