Home from Birmingahm/new cast

September 30, 2007

Hi everyone,

We are home from Birmingham and Haley is now in her fourth cast (her

second Mehta cast. We really had our hopes up that we would see

dramatic results. She even looked much better to us after the cast

was removed Thursday! So we were shocked when Dr. Khoury said even he

was dissapointed with the results. Last time he told us her spine

was rigid and hard to manipulate, but he managed to get her curve to

18 degrees in cast (she was 38 degrees out of cast.)

He said at best there was maybe 2 degrees of improvement from this

cast, depending on where he measured the curve. He said the 1st cast

did " loosen " her spine and he was able to address the rotation much

better this time. She is currently 20 degrees in cast (38 degrees

out of cast). He said he was still hopeful that this cast would show

some improvement (he's hoping for 5 degrees), but that it was going

to be a long road. She was in the previous cast 8 weeks and he wants

to shoot for 10 weeks in this cast. He said the longer the better

b/c towards the end of the cast is when it fits the tightest and does

the most work.?.?.?. What do you all think of that? It is already

VERY fitting :)She was very bruised aroud her belly when the cast was

taken off.

This visit was not quite as smooth as last time. She has an allery

to egg and was not able to have some of the meds that go along with

anesthesia (because there is egg protein in the meds) Sooooo, she

reacted quite differently to the anesthesia. She was very nauseated

after waking up and coughed up blood (I guess b/c of the tube down

her throat) the nurse acted as if this was no big deal, but it was

very SCARY for me! Haley is very scared of doctors and gets very

upset even walking into the hospital. I was wondering if any of you

had suggestions on how I might could help her cope better. The nurse

wanted to give her some " happy juice " but explained that usually they

only give it to kids 3 yrs and older. I am NOT a big medicine person

anyway, so when she told me that, I said no thanks! If this would

help her I would be willing to do it, but I want to know if any of

your little ones have ever had it and how it affected them. THANKS

Misty and Haley

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