Before bed Squeals

    Right before bedtime each night Ava gets very talkative, she really likes the sound of her voice. Listen and see is she reminds you of a really pissed off cat.....hahaha

Can we get any closer to a complete bend!!

  Ava will officially be 4 months old is a week and a day and after all that time of working with her poor little leg each and every day we are ALMOST THERE!!! She is doing so good and has been such a little trooper through the whole thing!!! Love this little girl

Such a little fatso!

This is the special brace that was made for Ava. The Black device constantly pulls the two halves together so she has to work her muscles to straighten her leg out.

Catch up

It has been much to long since my last post, so I have a few things to catch up on.
We had a really fun Halloween that we spent in Wyoming with family. Austin went trick or treating with his cousins, he was a mountain man. Ava was a strawberry and she spent all of 1 hour in her costume before she crashed for the night.

       Ava now has a special brace that was made just for her. It has a hinge at the knee that allows her to bend and kick her knee, but has constant pressure pulling it back to the bent position. She only has to wear it at night now, the doctors want her using her knee and building the muscles during the day, this also gives us the chance to play with it more and bend it more. I would post a pic of it right now, but I have currently misplaced it, so next time!

We are excited to begin this holiday season with all our friends and family. Here is hoping that our Christmas gift with be a fully bent knee, we sure work at it each day!

KICKING!!

(taken on my phone, so the quality sucks!)

Thrilled....

This week I wasn't able to go to Ava's appointment because I had my own Dr appointment for my 6 week check up. 6 weeks already, how time flies. My mom took her to her appointment this time. She said Dr. Pond kept telling her how amazed he was that Ava was doing so well and had come so far so quickly!! Go Ava!! She now has an 80 degree bend  in her leg, Hurray!!!

We also hit a HUGE milestone this week! While I was bathing Ava on Friday night and she was kicking and splashing in the water I noticed..........pause for affect........She is bending her leg on her own in the right directions!!!!!!!! I was SO excited I yelled for Clay to come in and watch her!!! I am so excited my little girl has progressed so much, and is such a trooper through it all!! I would have made a video of her kicking her leg and posted it, but again she was in the tub so not completely modest.

Baby Steps

  We have been to Shriner's twice since last I wrote. Dr. Sontora has been on vacation, so we have seen Dr. Pond the last two weeks, he is really nice also. He went through all the muscles in her foot for me and explained what they do and showing me how she moved them all correctly. I told him I was concerned about her hip because of the weight of her splint she holds her leg off to the side and rest it on the ground when she is on her back. He explained to me that this position is actually a healthy position for the hip to be in, if she were holding it in that would be concerning. He said he would do an ultrasound of her hip the next week to make sure, but ended up going over the x-rays we had at our first visit and said everything looks normal there. We have now graduated from a straight leg to a slight bend last week, and a really good bend this week, which is so exciting! Ava is doing awesome! We still take off the wrap a few times a day and work with it, and by the recommendation of Dr. Pond I now give her little leg a nightly massage, to help loosen the muscles and make sure her other joints don't get sore. She was getting a pressure sore on her ankle from the splint and the massages have also helped clear this up, hurray! All and all we are making great progress with her, little by little she is getting a good bend out of the leg. She can no longer bend her knee up, but rather holds it out straight when she has it unwrapped. This makes me very hopeful that her leg will cooperate through the whole process.

Straight Leg

         We have an appointment every Thursday with Dr. Sontora to get a new splint for Ava's leg. We were a little late for the appointment because I am still getting used to getting 2 kids ready to go. They took us straight to the casting room and the nurse unwrapped Ava's leg, then told us the Doctor would be just a moment. Well, Dr. Sontora was running a little late too apparently because we ended up waiting almost an hour before we got to see him. The nurse said he was working with a teen with a very bad back, and was taking extra time with him, so we forgave him. Our visits with him are very quick, they examine Ava's progress and then make her a new cast to stretch her out. This week we got a straight leg!! Hurray, she looks normal!!!  We are supposed to take off her splint 4 to 5 times a day and stretch out her leg. This week we have been able to get a little bit of a bend out of her when we bend it! Double Hurray!!