Our First Boise Clinic Experience

It's that time again! Here's another blog post with our latest medical updates for Abby girl.

Tuesday morning Abby went in for a renal ultrasound. This was her first in several months and she was definitely hesitant. She cried initially and then was fine as soon as the technician asked her to go on her belly for a better view of her kidneys. This calmed her right down and she was so good for the rest of the ultrasound! It's getting a little trickier for us to reason through these visits as she gets older, but I think she's getting the hang of it.

Abby loves her chair time and playing with her dog, Dante (yes, thank you Coco for the name).

We took a bit of a break from the clinic schedule to meet with Abby's physical therapist at the park. Idaho's Infant Toddler Program (the equivalent of Utah's Early Intervention) has treated us really well so far. This program is totally free to families who need it, and Abby has received PT visits at our home once a week for about a month now. Abby loves to play with Miss Anna! She has been SO good with Abby and is really responsive to what she needs or wants during her visits.

On Tuesday we decided it would be a fun change of pace to meet at a local park that is totally accessible to kiddos who need a more adaptive experience. It's incredible. Abby was able to wheel herself all around the playground equipment and got a big kick out of chasing Anna on the ramps. We were all really impressed with her motivation and execution of the things we've been working on. Such a fun time at the park!

Playing with Miss Anna at the park.

An update on her gross motor activity: Abby uses her wheelchair perfectly and we're working on her endurance in it (at the park, she had no problem staying in it for longer periods of time). She can get in and out of the wheelchair with some assistance at this point. Abby has started to love to stand up, against objects like the couch or her play kitchen. She can nearly pull to standing by herself. When she stands, she's doing a better job at pulling her bum in and standing more upright. She's also almost independent going up the stairs, and can come down by herself just fine. Overall, we've seen huge improvements since moving to Idaho. We're really proud of her and true to form, she seems to have made a few decisions to start doing some of these things by herself.

Playing doctor is one of Abby's new favorite games. Hopefully this will help her attitude toward medical professionals!

We followed up at the St. Luke's Spina Bifida Clinic later in the day. This was our first trip to the clinic and I was a little anxious to meet the doctors who would start following Abby's progress (I really loved her doctors at Primary Children's). This clinic has wonderful support from the support group in Idaho and they provided a bag with some snacks and a toy for Abby to play with during the visit. This really helped Abby to warm up to the environment and was a life saver!

Abby feels rather protective of her daddy. Sometimes I don't get to give him a back rub, she takes care of him instead.

Always consistent, Abby hated getting her height, weight, and head circumference checked. If you were to ask her, that was probably the worst part of the day... Next, the urologist came in to see Abby. She answered a few of our questions about potentially needing any kind of bowel program. Right now, we're still good to not cath or worry about a bowel program with Abby. Her ultrasound images looked good from that morning. She will need another VCMG this fall (where they monitor potential reflux into the kidneys and measure her bladder capacity and behavior) to reevaluate what her needs are. While the urologist wasn't my favorite doctor (I think I took her comments a little too personally...let's blame the pregnancy :)), she gave us some good information on what to expect.

This is her new prayer stance. I can't get enough of it! She really loved watching the church's Be One celebration.

A neurosurgeon was next up, and he was so great with Abby. He said we won't need to do regular imaging on her shunt or spine until we feel there are reasons for concern. She does have a build up of fluid toward her lesion, which is common. There's no need to worry about this, at this point. He said he likes to educate parents to know what to look for as the child grows, and we will be able to recognize when something is off with Abby. He tested her reflexes and spent a lot of time testing her feeling in her feet and legs.

St. Luke's has cases full of dolls that Abby loves to look at.

Next we met with the orthopedic surgeon. Abby will be fitted for new AFO's at her next PT appointment (yes, they're coming to our house to do the fitting!!). He said he really liked the work that Shriner's did on her club foot. He encouraged us to keep stretching her ankles, legs, etc. He asked about her hips and then was easily able to pop her hips in and out of their joints. This is common with spina bifida and won't impact her ability to learn to walk or move in any way. This is really only a concern if one goes out and the other stays in, for an extended period of time. So, while it was unexpected news, there's nothing we can do about it and there's no reason to worry about it. We'll stretch her legs more frequently to keep her limber.

Abby was pretty proud of her bandaid after getting vaccines last week. She was a champion at the pediatrician!

We were in and out of clinic much faster than we ever were at Primary Children's and we felt confident with everyone we talked with. Abby was such a trooper and we were thrilled with our experience. This was hugely comforting, as we had enjoyed our experiences in Utah. This was like the last assurance I needed after the move.

In other news, Abby has started asking about "sitting on the toilet to go potty." This is something that totally caught Rhett and me by surprise. We anticipated crossing this bridge much later, but we were excited that she wanted to try! So, we bough a seat for her and she has LOVED sitting on it, wiping her bum, and feeling like a big kid. So far, she's been really successful in this and while we don't expect her to be fully competent any time soon, she has shown us that again, she can decide to do anything she wants to. We'll see how this potty-training continues. We've added a bit of Miralax to her diet, per the urologist's advice, in order to keep her a little more regular. Hopefully we'll be able to help her little body get on a better schedule.

Feeling like a big girl and practicing keeping her knees bent.

As always, thank you all for your concern and support for us and Abby! We love you all.