Eli's Famous Feet

Just like I warned Lehr before I told him, I'll warn you: this may come off as a boast, but I'm too excited to not post about it.

I frequently read two support message boards for parents of clubfeet kids. I get the clubfoot posts sent to one of my email addresses daily since I don't always have time to visit the site, but I don't want to miss any posts. I rarely post anything on the site anymore because we haven't had any issues since Eli first started wearing his shoes. And when I do post, it's usually just an email to a specific person who is asking for help (rather than post to the whole board). (My point in telling you is that I've never been a regular poster on the board, nor have I 'advertised' Eli's video or story on there.) Anyway, today when I read the daily posts, I found this post from a woman in France (her English is not perfect) who is pregnant with a son diagnosed with bilateral clubfeet (The first video she references is one from a man upset about the poor treatment of his son's feet. They were NOT corrected by a Ponseti-trained doctor. The man who posted it has since made it a private video, otherwise I'd post the link.):

Well I have been lucky, I saw the video you're talking about but also the great "Eli's feet" one and the "Walking Miracle"... All three learned me somethings : Eli's feet shows so well the treatment I recommended the video to everybody I know !

WOW! Very high praise especially from someone I don't know. Then a few days later, this post showed up also (part of the same chain of posts, but from a different reader, still in France):

I wish I had discovered "Eli's feet" before because it is really a sweet video and shows everything with no words on a really nice music ;-) when I first saw it I thought : "oh well , it doesn't look so terrible to go through !"... And I sent it to all friends and family, you son is now famous in France, Nicole :-) I even sent it to the doc who is going to follow my son so that he can show it to the new parents :-))

This makes me so so so happy. Not for the selfish reasons though (but I am proud). It makes me happy to know that Eli's video is doing what it was intended to do: set parents' minds at ease about the treatment and end-result of Ponseti-corrected clubfeet and help them realize surgery is NOT the answer. It is so neat to know even people in other countries are benefiting from Eli's experience.

The other video I posted, Walking Miracle, gained these favorable comments in a post to a newbie this week (This is the video which featured a few seconds of Eli crawling with the bar. Click here for the whole story.):

Everyone in your family needs to watch the YouTube video "Walking Miracle". This video is amazing.

Also, another woman recently stumbled across the Eli's Feet video and she asked permission to post it on her site. She has three boys, all born with clubfeet. She informed me that there is a parents' banquet in Iowa City next month honoring Ponseti. I'm not sure of the details yet, so of course I'm unsure if it would be an option for us. But if the stars align and there would be some way for us to go meet the wonderful Dr. Ponseti, it would be great. Apparently there will be more than 100 doctors from 40 different countries attending.