I decided to start blogging about Jordan from the moment I found out I was pregnant. Jordan was born with a little arm that didn't grow like most babies. Her left arm stopped just above the elbow. Now I'm committed to making sure Jordan gets everything out of life. We feel blessed to be the parents of a very special little girl.

3.20.2008

Another busy week

It's amazing how swamped I am at work this week. Today Jordan got to meet with her physical therapist for the first time in many many months. I was kind of hoping we'd get the all clear from wearing those shoe inserts and move towards letting Jordan wear cute sandals and other shoes like that.

Oh well.

Jordan wears her shoes with inserts almost all of the time. I don't just watch her walk without those inserts. So today, we took a look. We had her walk around without shoes and socks and you can really see what's going on. The good news: Jordan's knees aren't knocking inward anymore. But her ankles are still strangely pointing in and her feet are SUPER flat. The new recommendation is to get Jordan to walk around without shoes on more often. That may not be as easy as it sounds. Not long after she started wearing bare feet, she started looking for her shoes to put them back on. Apparently walking without her inserts make her feel a little off.

Our therapist also took a look at the prosthetic we're using. It's a myoelectric arm and it just hasn't worked exactly as we wanted. The hand doesn't open and close when we want it to -- and after playing around with it today, the trigger on the sensor is actually inconsistent. It was fully charged! And what stinks is Jordan has been looking at the hand lately and ASKING it to open. That means she totally gets what it's supposed to do! Grrrrr. The one positive about the arm is Jordan's range of motion is finally expanding. She's able to lift her arm up so much higher than before. So we're gaining muscle and to me, that's very important. But because Jordan is clearly ready to work on the hand function, but we can't seem to get that to work properly, our therapist is going to look for other possible options. I'm willing to travel anywhere if we can find a solution.

Jordan's going to be fine with our without a prosthetic. I'm certain of that. But I'm totally open to find an even better option... If there is one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Nerdymom, I just stumbled on your blog from a google alert I have for "prosthetic arm."

My daughter (she's ours, I'm possessive) is 7. She was born with a congenital amputation just below her left elbow. It was a thrill to see all your pics of Jordan with her sleeve rolled up. Rolling sleeves.

I also have 3 stepsons and a 2 year old son. Syd is one of the gang, nothing slows her down, except those platic high heels. No one can go fast in those. Syd just got her 4th new prosthetic arm. She wears them sporadically and then eventually they land in the toybox. I'm actually sending two old ones off to Limbs for Life.

I don't know where you live, but if you haven't discovered them, Shriners Hospitals are amazing.

If you're interested in more... email me directly: nrosetulip it's a gmail account. I'm not doing the address because they get spidered.

Jordan is beautiful and she will never stop amazing you, and soon, she'll probably never stop negotiating. It's a girl thing.
nancy