My Big Gid

Gideon had two appointments up at Primary Children's on Thursday--a bladder study and an orthopedic doctor appt. Both appointments went well, and we have further evidence of the Lord's mercy on our little boyo. He truly is doing better than we could have ever hoped.

The bladder study was pretty uncomfortable (he yelled the entire time, but not with pain, he was just ticked off), but the results were very comforting. Many children with spina bifida experience bladder reflux, when the urine is pushed back into the kidneys. If there is any bacteria in the urine, then serious kidney damage can occur. Aaron Fotheringham lost the use of one of his kidneys this way. Gideon's bladder, even when full of fluid, didn't reflux. Yay! Now we can take him off the precautionary antibiotic he's been on since birth. We get to do this all again in six months, but for now, we don't have to worry about his bladder/kidneys at all. (By the way [John! hee hee], this test really doesn't say anything about his ability to be potty-trained in the future, but we're just taking this one step at a time.)

The orthopedic doctor decided that only Gideon's left foot needed to be casted--the right foot should be okay with a lot of physical therapy. All the bones seem to be in the right spots, and we have a pretty good chance of being able to correct his club foot with the casting--although club feet on spina bifida kids don't respond as well to casts as other types. If it doesn't work then we'll have to explore surgery options (yuck). But for now, Gideon has a huge cast from below his toes to the top of his thigh--they get much better results if they cast the whole leg. This is what it looked like when we got home Thursday evening:
And this is what it looks like now that I've had a chance to decorate it:

Gideon gets a new cast every week for the next four weeks, so if anyone has any great decorating ideas, speak up! I'm thinking I'll have to go invest in colored sharpie markers so I can do trains next time.