Shoes

Yesterday at PT, Karen and I discovered that Sammy wasn't crying because of the brace, he was crying because the shoes were hurting his foot. At therapy he crawled all over in the brace and pulled to a stand, and even cruised around. So the brace was not the problem it was the shoes.

Last night after going to multiple stores I finally found a pair that will fit over his AFO. I found these at the Gap, and I had to relace them, because he can't have anything that is elastic according to the orthopedic dude. These shoes work great and are still cute. I did have to buy a size bigger then what he actually wears(but better then two sizes too big that we were thinking we would have to go to), hopefully that will just make them last longer. Karen said that it isn't a big deal to have bigger shoes until he is trying to walk, walk. Hopefully by then these shoes will fit perfectly. (Before Sammy I always tried to buy shoes a size bigger! Sammy gets special treatment.)

I was starting to get pretty frustrated last night after going to seven different stores. I didn't bring Sammy with me, just the brace. People must of thought I was pretty crazy trying to put the braces inside the shoes. But after I went to K-mart(yeah, I was desperate!), the idea came to me of just relacing the Gap shoes. I had a ten dollar off coupon they sent me, so it made these 14.50. Still more then I like to pay for shoes, but not outrageous either.

Today he climbed all the stairs wearing shoes and AFO/UCB. It does wear him out fast and he gets frustrated easily because he can't move his feet at all, and on the left side he can't move anything below the knee. So think about crawling around wearing that. I asked yesterday about WHY exactly this helps with locking his knee. I didn't really understand until yesterday. Karen said that basically if you sit down with your legs extended and point your toe upward. At a certain angle your knee automatically bends, the AFO is at that perfect angle so he can't lock his knee at all. I can't see the knee problem on Sammy because I feel like his other knee does weird things too, like all my other kids at this age. I trust them that they know what they are talking about and have been doing this for a long time. I do notice his toes curl on his left side and they don't on the right side. He just moves both his knees the same on both sides, so that is why it is confusing to me. I also notice that the brace keeps him from turning his foot outward as much. But that is genetics too, I come from a long line of duck walkers, me included. So to me that is normal! He does that on both sides equally too. At least we know have a pair of shoes!