I'm Gonna Put On ... My Funky Shoes!

Noel was born with a unilateral clubfoot. Actually, so was I. And so were a lot of famous athletes -- Troy Aikman, Kristi Yamaguchi, Mia Hamm, and Charles Woodson to name a few.

Noel's clubfoot wasn't that severe and we started treating it right away while he was still in the NICU. We went through a whole series of casts and ugly orthopedic shoes with a steel bar in between, and now he as a straight and beautiful foot! All we had to do is put his sneakers on the wrong feet (banana feet, we call it) to help keep his foot from turning in.

Casting for 3 months

Ugly orthopedic shoes and the even uglier steel bar

Ah, yes ... you smart readers, you noticed I said "had" in that last sentence. We had our regular follow-up ortho appointment last week. After a series of x-rays and doctors pulling and rotating Noel's foot all over the place, they very very happy about how his foot looks now. I was beaming and put out my hands to accept the "Mother of the Year" award for making my child go through so much crap to have this nice looking foot.

The doctors left me empty handed. Instead they told me that between the ages of 2-3 years old is when club foot has the greastest chance of regression. SO, they want to put Noel in another pair of shoes at night. These shoes are much nicer and softer, but they still have that dang steel bar.

The new, less ugly, more sci-fi looking shoes with that dang steel bar

The steel bar makes you have to move both legs together at the same time -- you cannnot sleep on your side or your stomach. The steel bar makes sleeping very, very unpleasant. So I did a bunch of research and found a new bar that allows the legs to independently to allow better sleeping. I contacted our doctor's office who approved it for Noel AND I got our insurance company to cover it, too -- the moons and stars must have been in alignment!

The better bar in action

The sci-fi shoes and better bar have been ordered and should be here by Christmas. Fa-la-la-la-la, someone pass the eggnog ... and make it a double!