Lovely Livvy: CASTS and an MRI?!?!?!

Yup, that's right Casts! (We'll get to the MRI thing in a minute) Olivia just had to inherit my funny feet. My feet turned in when I was little and I was put in corrective shoes. When Livvy was born I told the pediatrician about my feet issue and she made a note to check her feet every time we came in. She also said that she hasn't seen children in corrective shoes for a long time. Well, it happend! We went to Mom and Dad's and one of the first thing they noticed was that her feet were turning in. We had never noticed it, it literally happend over night! Her left foot was really turning in and was starting to curve into itself. So fast forward to the Monday after we returned from our vacation at Olivia's 4 month well baby check up. Let me just stop right there and tell your her awesome stats! She is growing so well, she is 14 lbs 5 oz (50%) and 27 and 1/4 inches long (99%, gee who would have thought right?)! She also got her 4 month shots and that was very hard on me, I had to leave the room and Kevin had to be with her.

OK, back to the casts...we asked the Pediatrician about her feet and she was obviously concerned. She gave us a referral to a Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon because this was something she has never seen before. I called right after we got home that afternoon and fortunatley they were able to get her in that Wed. The Dr. was so sweet and very concerned as well, he couldn't believe her feet moved that quickly and that her left arch was so tight. He said that normally they can do exercises to help stretch out the muscle and that should help a lot but her left foot was so bad that he could barely move it! Now for the MRI part. He said that even though I had this problem when I was a child, he wants to have her go in for an MRI on her spine to make sure there isn't anything on her spine that could be pulling on the tendon and causing her foot to move so fast. Because an MRI requires absolute stillness she has to be sedated which involves an IV. I was a mess!! Because the hospital was unable to get her in for a week the Dr. wanted to go ahead and cast her feet that day. The casts she has on are on both feet and go all the way up her thighs! She had just started putting her feet in her mouth and now she can't even bend her knees enough to get them to her mouth :( The casts are a special product by 3M just for babies. It is a softer "hard cast" that I can peel off once a week and then she will go back in to have it replaced. This was she doesn't have to deal with the scary cast saw and I can give her a real bath once a week (she gets sponge baths now). The Dr. thinks it will be about 5 weeks of casting and then she can get them off and move to the corrective shoes with a bar between. I am scared to death of the sedation process but if it is necessary we will do it. I am praying that there is nothing on her spine and that it is just a hereditary thing (which the Dr. thinks it is but wants to be sure). I will post how everything goes once we get home and settled on Thursday after her MRI.

Her left foot which is the worst