In Which Connor Gets New Braces And I Add To My Body Part Collection

Connor hasn't had a single seizure today!  I think he's completely over the 24 hour bug he had and has also acclimated to his medication change.  Just in time, too-- we'll be switching it up again on him tomorrow when we drop down another 2ml on his daily dose.  Oh well.

Today Connor was fitted for and received his new ankle-foot orthotics (AFOs) and back brace!  We were only expecting to get the AFOs today, but we got a call from the orthotic center just after I picked the little guy up from school to let us know that the back brace had also come in and if we got to our appointment thirty minutes early we could walk out the door with both.  So I popped Connor back in the car and we drove up for his fitting.

So here's one of his shiny new AFOs!  Connor picked out the colors and whatnot himself.  Well, actually Connor had zero interest in the colors and I might have helped just a little bit.  The fact that red and black happen to be my roller derby team colors is completely coincidental, I assure you.

He did pick out the fire-themed straps, though.

Anyway, the AFOs are pretty much like his old ones except they are made of slightly sturdier stuff to offer more support and they come up a bit higher on his ankle.  The back brace, however, is a new animal for us, so they showed me how to strap him in correctly and cinch the thing up. 

He's supposed to wear it for an hour at a time two or three times a day and then work up from there.  Connor doesn't seem to mind it too much, though he doesn't really want to sit up on his own with it on.  He's used to being able to bend forward to keep his balance, and the brace doesn't allow him to do that.  I swear he looks about three inches taller with it on! 

So we walked out of there with his new AFOs, the back brace, five pairs of socks, a temporary "body tube sock" for him to wear under his brace until his undershirts get here, and the pièce de résistance: plaster molds of Connor's feet.  I took a picture for you of them but then I had to hide them because of my cat's bizarre plaster fetish.  Mmm, tasty.

Some parents collect their child's drawings or lovingly create scrapbooks of baby photos.  Not me.  I collect reproductions of my child's body parts.  So far I have photos of his adrenal gland (they took some for a medical textbook while they were removing his kidney), fetal MRI photos in which he is basically a giant brain with eyeballs and looks like one of those aliens from Mars Attacks, x-rays of his spine, and photos from a barium swallow study in which you can view the outline of several of his internal organs. 

Now I can add his feet to the mix.  I figure that Connor will be able to trump pretty much any of his classmate's attempts at Show-And-Tell for his entire childhood.  Who wants to see some kid's missing tooth or pet goldfish when you can bring photos of your own adrenal gland to school? 

I'm pretty sure that'll be hard to top.

~Jess