On the morning of May 9th our friend Danielle and her daughter Sophie came over for a play date and to chat about adoption. It was a nice visit and fun play time for the girls. After lunch and they left, we headed to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Dani’s yearly hip check. We started with height/weight and an xray.

Dani cooperated with Dr. Podezwa and he said that she is doing great. Everything looked good and we are clear for another year. WOO HOO!!

Hiding in wait for the doctor.

At the end of October Amelie had her check up at Texas Scottish Rite from her surgery back in July. They wanted to see how the toes were looking and if the nails were growing back. They told us that everything looked good and that will continue to check them at her yearly hand clinic visit.

After the check up we went to get a drink over at 7-11 and the man at the register asked about school and I said she had a check up next door. And he said, “All princesses who go to Scottish Rite get a Slurpee when they are done.” Amelie was SO EXCITED that he gave her a free one.

The super cool waiting area in Radiology.

It’s been 6 months since Dani had all the hardware removed from her pelvis and femur so it was time for a check up at Texas Scottish Rite. We got there and went straight to radiology and then waited for our turn to see Dr. Podezswa.

The doctor told us that her hip is doing the best that we could possibly hope for. He said that the ball they created looks good and is a great size. He said the socket they made for it is also growing well and that her femur is a little big, but that is normal since she has gone through two surgeries and healing. He said to just let her keep being a kid and that nothing we do or don’t do would impact her continued hip growth/strength. We go back in 9 months for her next check up which will be the 2 year anniversary of her surgery. Yippie!

Once Amelie wasn’t feeling any more pain she started to run around and play like normal – even with two casts on. So she ended up cracking one of them open 9 days after her surgery. I called Scottish Rite and explained the situation. They asked me if I wanted to try and take the cast off myself since I had seen it done so many times and I said yes. We got it off and took a photo for them and once the doctor saw it he said we could just keep it clean and keep our appointment for the next week. Then the next day she cracked the other one open! So Mike took that one off and we got her feet cleaned and wrapped in ace bandages because the toes themselves were still sensitive.

The following Wednesday we headed for our check up and Dr. Stutz said that her feet looked great. He told us to come back in 3 months so we could see if any of the nails had started to grow back. We pray that the answer is no!

With Dr. Stutz.

The girls waiting at Texas Scottish Rite for Amelie’s turn.

Ever the fashionable girl she chose her dress for the day. And of course her Ami doll had to come with us. We met the newest addition to the hand team Dr. Stutz and I liked him immediately. All the docs are so great at TSRH and he seemed like a perfect fit.

Daddy helping with a breathing treatment so she could look at her new sticker books. After the treatment and the “goofy juice” they rolled her back and gave us our beeper. They told us to expect it to take about an hour so we decided to go and have lunch in the cafeteria.

I saw this while waiting on our food. Even the wet floor signs are cool at Scottish Rite.

We asked them to wrap the Ami doll legs while Amelie was in surgery. They asked us her favorite color and we said pink. When she realized that Ami had casts too she said, “Did Daddy do that?” Makes my heart happy that she knows that it is something he would do.

When Amelie woke up she was in so much pain. It absolutely broke my heart. They had to give her a lot of meds to calm her down and get her to fall back to sleep. This was the hardest wake up amount of pain she has had in 4 surgeries.

Once we were home and Amelie was awake again she wanted a photo of her and Ami with their casts. She did such a wonderful job and was so brave.

Dani with Dr. Podeszwa and Dr. Birch and their thank you gifts.

On February 16th Dani had her post surgery check up. Dr. Podeszwa said that she looked great and that the would was in good shape. He asked us to try and keep her from being too rambunctious for another 2 weeks if we could. He said they wanted to see her in 6 months and then every year after that for x-rays. We are so blessed by the staff of Texas Scottish Rite and all that they have done for our family.

Mike reading to the girls while we waited for the doctors.

The big girls are always happy they get toys too.

On February 5th we had to take Dani up to Texas Scottish Rite to have all the metal removed from her pelvis and femur. We were scheduled for a day surgery and I was ready to get it over with and her to be past all of these medical needs. We were the first surgery of the day and once we were checked in they came to get her at 8:30 and we went down to the cafeteria to have breakfast. After breakfast we spent some time in the gift shop waiting for the beeper to go off to have us come back.

Once back in the day surgery area we could pretty quickly hear her crying. They rolled her bed over to us and said she was fine until they asked, “Do you want to see your mama?” Then they said she started screaming hysterically. I tried to hold her, but it wasn’t working so Mike took her and they gave her a shot of pain killers because she couldn’t calm down. It was really sad. Once she was calm and they watched her have a couple cups of juice they told me I could go her her medicine from the pharmacy so we could leave. We got to leave fairly soon after that which was great. I knew she would do better at home with her sisters. (Thanks to my Aunt Paula for staying with the big girls for the morning)

Dr. Podeszwa said that the surgery went as well as it could go. He also let us know that he took out all of the bad scar tissue in her leg in an attempt to make the scar look better. I thought that was a really sweet thing to do since it had a bad keloid look to it after healing the first time in a body cast. He asked us to keep her from jumping off the furniture, running, jumping or playing on playground equipment for 2-3 weeks. Oh boy.

I snapped this photo after Dani woke up from a very long afternoon nap. As long as I didn’t move her or bump her leg, she was a happy girl.

She started out needed to be snuggled up with me, but later in the day she was happy to lay on the floor and play. We let her watch TV and the big girls played with her and she slept all night!

As I was going through photos I realized that I never posted about Dani’s one month check up at Texas Scottish Rite. It happened on August 7th and the short version is that she is doing perfect! Dr. Birch said that she couldn’t have healed better and that everything looks fantastic. He said to keep letting her judge what she felt comfortable doing, but that we were safely past the point that her femur should be fine. In the first 30 days there was a chance that it could snap if she was pushed too hard. Yuck!

This cool projector is in the waiting area of the orthopedic section and the girls love it when we come for appointments.

This is a photo of her x-ray and you can see the pins in her pelvis and the metal on her femur. Dr. Birch told us he wanted to see us again in 3 months. He also said again that it would be about 6 months for full mobility. He also said they would want to take all the metal out at about 6 months post cast removal. That should only require an overnight stay in the hospital and a bandage. Whew!

The day after Dani’s cast removal we had Amelie’s 1 year hand check up at Texas Scottish Rite so we loaded everyone up and headed over there. We started in radiology and this time Dr. Oishi  gave us a photo copy of them.

I know a lot of people have wondered what her hand bones look like and so I was glad to have this as a reference. Right before we started the appointment a person from the media department asked if we were willing to have Amelie filmed for a project they were putting together for the times Dr. Oishi travels around speaking and teaching about the work they do at Scottish Rite. We said of course and in they came with the camera. Dr. Oishi said that she is doing well and has good movement. He also said that there was no reason to do another surgery on the left side at this time. There was a possibility of removing the webbing to make the fingers a little longer, but he is worried that the middle finger will just hang there because it doesn’t have a longer bone in there. Right now it is sort of attached to the ring finger and she gets some use out of it.

He told her that she did a great job for the video and we wouldn’t have to come back for another year! Yippie! Once that was finished we bought some popcorn and headed outside to check out the new playground remodel. It is awesome!

After they had a good time outside we headed home relieved that surgeries for this year are behind us.

My aunt Paula showed up early in the morning to keep the big girls while we went to the hospital. As we were driving to Scottish Rite I kept thinking, “Please let her be great. Please let her be healed. Please let this be the end.” We signed in at the hospital and headed for the Day Surgery unit where we had been 3 times before with Amelie. They showed us to our waiting area and then we waited for all the various people to come by and talk to us. Dani was having fun during the wait and being her usual happy self. First came the anesthesiologist, then the resident for Dr. Birch and then someone from the research department. They had hoped that Dani could take part in a genetic study but then realized that she was adopted and that wouldn’t work. I told her that if we could have done it, we would have been glad to. The nurse for Dani’s surgery came to ask what color we wanted for the new cast. I said, “Purple, but I hope we don’t need it.”

Once all the documents had been signed the nurse gave Dani the “goofy juice” to keep her calm as they took her back and we changed her into the surgical gown. The nurse gave her some stickers to play with while we waited for her turn and then they rolled her back. I asked God one more time to please let her be healed and for this to be the end. Mike and I took a beeper and headed down to the cafeteria to have a quick breakfast since they thought this would take less than an hour. When they rolled her back in I couldn’t tell if there was a new cast or not and so I said to Dr. Birch, “No cast?” and he said, “No cast.” I immediately said an unexpected, “Halleluiah!” and started to cry from all the pent-up stress. Dr. Birch told us that everything looked perfect and she couldn’t have done better. He showed us her x-ray (I forgot to ask for a photo this time) and said we would need to return for a 1 month, 3 month and 6 month follow up. He said that at 6 months they usually remove all the hardware and that will require an overnight stay. He told us again that it could take up to 6 months for her to reach full mobility, but to let her go at her own pace.

The nurse told Mike he could go down to the pharmacy and get Dani’s pain medicine and that I could get her changed so we could go home. When I took the gown off of her she looked down, smacked her belly two times and said, “Belllleeee Belllleeee!” Then she wiggled her toes and moved her right leg up and down with such an ecstatic look on her face. A few minutes after Mike came back upstairs they let us leave and we went to the car and headed home. WOO HOO! When Mike put her in the car seat she seemed so surprised and almost the entire way home she was pointing out the window and saying, “Mom! Mom! Mom!” for every fun thing she saw. We could tell she was so happy to be sitting up and able to see out the window again for the first time in 8.5 weeks.

Once we were home she just wanted to eat and then lay on me for quite a while and watch TV which we were happy let her do. We found that she couldn’t sit up on her own yet, so we had to get her in position to lean against something or for her to be laying down.

After her nap she wanted to get down on the floor, be free and go after some toys.

The best part for her was the BATH!!!! Because she couldn’t sit up Mike thought we should try to prop her up on a booster chair and that worked perfectly for her to soak for a nice long time. The skin on her lower back and legs was very dry and her left leg had a lot of scabs, plus her scars were a little raw. Our family was so very happy that the cast was off!