The Case of the Brace

Well, we are back into brace life.

The first few days were rough.  Really rough.

Mackenzie had some lingering traumatization (is that a word?) from the cast removal.  Her brace does up via velcro and every time we would undo the velcro to take it off that noise would scare her and she would start crying.  She also was hating the brace.  Every time we would put it back on after a diaper change or bath or being in her carseat, she would cry. The first two days she would not even let us put her down on the floor without crying.  We basically had to hold her or be right down on the floor with her.

She is back in the same kind of brace she had before we did the closed reduction.  It's a stiff foam type material that they cut to fit and then heat up and mould to her body.  It's called a diaper splint.  In all the reading I've done about DDH I have never seen this time of brace before.  This brace worked well for us when Mackenzie was first diagnosed.  She was only 6 months old and not crawling yet.  This time around she was able to be extremely mobile in her second cast: crawling, sitting in it even, and pulling up on stairs, coffee tables, you name it.  The major downfall of this type of brace is that it keeps the kids totally straight.  Sitting is not an option.  We also have some skepticism since this brace didn't do us any good the first time around.

After a couple breakdowns (on mom's part, not Mackenzie's), we sent an email to our surgeon's secretary - who is awesome by the way - asking if there is any way we could get a different type of brace.  I even sent pictures so there was no confusion about what we were asking for.

We had asked him about this while she was still in the cast and originally he said that is the type of brace he usually uses when kids come out of the cast.  However, when she got the cast off he said he was putting her back in the diaper splint.  I mentioned in the previous post, we questioned this but he gave some answer that didn't make much sense about the other brace's being longer term.

This is one of the photos I sent to the surgeon.
Found on the Hip Dysplasia Baby Center board.  

We heard back from his secretary that our surgeon has okayed us getting an abduction brace and we need to call "Northern Alberta Prosthetic and Orthotic Services" on Monday to set that up.  I'm hoping we can get in sooner rather than later so Mackenzie can have some more freedom.

In true Mackenzie fashion, she has just taken this new adventure in stride and is back to army crawling around and playing on the floor on her stomach and figuring out how to adapt to life back in the brace.

Here is a bad iPhone photo of her in the brace