Life with my boys: September 2009

If there is one thing I have learned over the past 5 years is that change is inevitable. Children are forever changing and before you blink they change again. With all of the physical changes Carter goes through comes prosthetic changes. Recently we discovered that Carter's gait issues were due to some weakness in his thigh muscle and tightness in his hip flexors. The gang at Next Step made many changes to his alignment but with each change came a new gait issue. There was no happy medium to be found. So Next Step did what they do best COLLABORATE! You know the saying "2 heads are better than 1"? Well in our case we have all the brains at Next Step collaborating to come up with a solution that will help Carter with his gait and stregthening his leg muscles. While we were in NY Next Step made a tie corset with knee joints to attach to Carters exsisting prosthetic to provide knee stability. I was confident it would make a tremendous difference for Carter. However, I still feel pain for my son having to deal with more equiptment just to be able to walk, run and play. Today Carters tie corset was added to his prosthetic and the instant change in his gait was amazing. As the day went on his gait continued to improve. The tie corset does restrict him a little bit but he is already finding ways around it. I say that like IM suprised, which I shouldn't be. Carter always finds a way to do what he wants. Tomorrow will be Carters 1st day of school and I will be going with him to see how he manages in his new environment with his new equiptment. I have no doubt he will have a great 1st day at school.

Carter doesn't know anything but happiness! His smile keeps me going everyday!

Thank You everyone at Next Step for all that you do for our family!