Outgrowing elongation

Namine has been complaining of her legs hurting. I think I know why.

Namine’s growth is measured by her arm span, not her height, because she has caudal regression. The birth defect affected her entire lower half, resulting in a partially formed tailbone, club feet, and shortened leg bones, among many other, more subtle side effects.

But even though we don’t regularly monitor Namine’s height, we do notice her growing in stature. I have written about her increase in height before, and have attributed it to Wolff’s Law. And it’s not mere growth — the bone structure in her legs has changed.

The direct result of this growth is that Namine’s wheelchair seat is now too small for her. Correction: it was too small for her, so we requested our medical equipment supplier to elongate Namine’s wheelchair.

The wheelchair elongation was actually done last fall. (I could have sworn I wrote about it, but now I can’t seem to find any posts about it.) We had some trouble with them getting a correctly sized cushion to accommodate the new length, but other than that, we’ve had no problems.

And now, a mere few months later, we find a certain girl is a foot longer than her newly elongated wheelchair. My daughter continues to amaze me.

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