Stronger than ever

Namine had an orthopedic appointment today. She was nervous, as she is wont to be when it comes to doctors, but afterward she said it was silly to be so.

There was nothing unusual about today’s appointment. It was a routine checkup, one we have roughly twice a year, whose purpose was to see how her feet and spine are growing. Both her clubfoot and scoliosis stem from her caudal regression, and why not check the progress of both at the same time?

After a tech got a couple x-rays of Namine’s spine, Dr. Black came in. It had been a while since he’d seen Namine, and he was amazed at how much she had grown. He inspected her feet; he noted that her feet have not retained the 90-degree angle to her legs that he would have liked — thus the wedges on her new braces — and that it would likely need to be rectified with another surgery. The right foot needed it for sure, possibly the left as well. He’ll take an x-ray of her feet at the next appointment, and by then we’ll see whether her feet have worsened or not.

On the matter of Namine’s scoliosis, however, the news was markedly better. Or, to put it more accurately, it is completely unchanged. When the only change can be for the worse, no change is good news indeed.

I helped Namine put her braces on, and she showed Dr. Black how she climbed in and out of her wheelchair. I set down her walker and she walked back and forth in the room. We took the walker in the hallway and she showed him how she ran, just like on the treadmill, with Jessica pushing the walker behind her.

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