The Feet

Still struggling.

We have only had one (maybe two) nights where Eli's shoes have stayed on through the night. The other nights he either wiggles out of them or takes them off in his sleep. Before I go to bed each night, I check on him and they're always off, so I put them back on while he's sleeping. Even with that, I estimate that we're getting about four hours a night in the boots, and we need at least eight. We had an appointment yesterday to get fitted for a pair of custom boots. The orthotist thinks they will fit his feet better so they'll stay on better. (Fingers crossed!) They won't be in for another week, so until then we'll continue the UFO boots we have now.

I took Eli to the chiropractor last week; at this point I'll try as many things as I can that may help loosen up his feet. He enjoyed that, the manipulation of his feet and the hot 'laser' treatment.

Today Eli had his first PT session. It was mostly an evaluation where the therapist walked through a bunch of exercises and tasks to see how Eli's feet performed. Then she took a handful of measurements with his feet flexibility. She finished by giving us some stretches and exercises to work on at home. Most of the stretches were ones that we've been working on, but we have not been as consistent as we'd like. Eli tends to get frustrated, especially since we do many of the stretches at night (no other time in the day!) when he's tired.

When we finished this afternoon, we came home and I had Eli go through all of her exercises so we could get one day 'done'. He started out great, but definitely got 'bored' towards the end. I had to remind him what the doctor, the orthotist and now the therapist said: if things don't improve real fast (as early as two weeks from now), we will have to start casting again. That will mean no baseball, no swimming, no football...pretty much all of the things Eli loves to do. That would absolutely break my heart, so I'm pushing him hard with this therapy. Parenting is not for the weak, I tell you....