Unsafe at Any Size

Staying positive in the face of bad things is never easy, and it’s especially difficult when it involves your own kid.

One of my boys, Nate, has a weakness on one side.    The technical terms make his condition sound much worse and much scarier than it actually is, but the technical term is hemiparesis, for those of you who like technical terms.  As long as I’m throwing around technical terms, the cause of this weakness is cerebral palsy, even more specifically periventricular leukomalacia.

As I said, the technical terms make it sound a lot worse than it is, and scared the bejeesus out of me initially when we got the diagnosis.  It seemed like a big diagnosis for a cranky baby who held his toe funny, and it held out the threat that he’d never walk or talk.

Fortunately, Nate is a very bright almost-6 year old kid who not only walks and talks but reads, runs, jumps and plays baseball at every opportunity.  Lots of early intervention means he’s doing great; most people don’t even notice anything different with him.

Due to the spasticity in his leg, he periodically has Botox injections.  Not only does it keep his leg smooth and youthful, it helps him get his heel down so his gait is more normal.  Fine-tuning his gait now means more normal growth and less pain as an adult.  We’re so lucky to have modern health care and the ability to access it.

As part of these injections, he also gets his leg casted to stretch his heel.  Yesterday, he started his casting.  His doctor is very upbeat and confident that these injections will help him.

But.  We also learned that Nate’s hip has something that has made the head orthpedist at Children’s want to see us and Nate.

There probably isn’t much we can be doing above what we are already doing.  And I’m trying to focus on the good things-active bright kid, good medical care, all of that.  If those sucky clouds would just stop getting in the way.