I’ve decided to revive this old blog as an easy means of sharing updates on Annie this summer! On June 7, the day before her four year adoption anniversary, Annie will be having a selective dorsal rhizotomy surgery at Lurie Children’s Hospital. Here’s an interview with her surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Raskin, about this surgery and other treatments that he oversees. Here’s a story about a child with very similar conditions to Annie’s who had the procedure done. After a 3-5 day hospital stay (where we understand Annie will have to stay on her tummy the whole time until the incision heals!), we’ll transfer down the street to Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, the top pediatric rehab center in the country, where she’ll spend 6-8 weeks of inpatient physical and occupational therapy to re-teach her how to walk. After we’re released, she’ll need to be in intensive outpatient PT back home (3-5 times a week!) for six months, then slow down to 3 times a week for another 6 months. At this point, we’re only doing PT once every other week, so we’re definitely in for a HUGE life change for the coming year!
The goal of all this is to improve her mobility, help her walk with a more normal gait, and ultimately reduce wear and tear on her joints from improper movement patterns she has developed to compensate for the extra tone in her legs and ankles.
I will be staying with Annie in the hospital and rehab center for those two months, and Derek will be holding down the fort with the four big kids all summer! They’re hoping to come in and visit us on Sundays–the only day that we don’t have therapies scheduled.
We are not worried at all about the procedure–they’ve been doing this kind of surgery for a hundred years–or her reaction to anesthesia–this will be her fourth major surgery, and we know she tolerates it okay!
We appreciate the prayers for all of Annie’s medical struggles these past five and a half years.
Please pray for Dr Raskin and the other medical team members who will be involved in this surgery. Pray that Annie responds well to the therapies and that this huge sacrifice will result in a much better quality of life moving forward!
Please pray for Emily and Annie’s two-month stay in Chicago! We are both extroverts who will miss the rest of the family tremendously!
Please pray for Derek to stay sane at home and for Tommy and Elizabeth, who will be shouldering a lot of the household responsibilities that Mom usually handles, as well as for Susie and Janie.
I may do some social media updates, but detailed updates will be posted here.