Shoes

For the past week I have been obsessed with shoes.  Not shoes for me like a cute new pair of summer sandals, but shoes for Noah and his new brace.  A week ago Noah and I made a trip into Children's Hospital for a long morning of 3 appointments that included his first brace fitting.  We had started discussing the possibility of a leg brace/orthotic for Noah about 6 months ago.  At that point Noah had just started "army crawling," was getting the hang of his butt scoot and really showed no interest in wanting to stand or walk.  The orthopedic MD we met with at the time told us to wait and see how he progressed and come back and see him at the Cerebral Palsy Clinic when he turned 18 months.  Fast forward to the end of April and Brad, Noah and I all headed into Children's for a 4 PM visit at the CP clinic.

I had been warned that the CP clinic could be a little overwhelming and that we should be prepared "to be there for awhile."  We armed ourselves with lots of snacks and tried to make it as entertaining as possible for the little man.  We met with an orthopedic MD, physiatrist, and physical therapist who after watching Noah crazily walk around the exam room suggested he be fitted for an AFO or ankle foot orthotic.  They told us that would be the best for Noah to help get his foot in better alignment (he tends to turn his right foot out which is apparently a normal occurrence after someone has a stroke) and strengthen his leg.  They also suggested we get him set up with a walker and an arm brace but I'll save that for another post!  So finally after getting done with the doctors we headed down to the basement and somehow found the brace shop.  At this point it was about 5:45 and Noah was on the brink of a total meltdown.  He had eaten all the snacks I had strategically packed-mini bagel, fruit pouch, oatmeal raisin cookie from Starbucks; and was working off of a 30 minute nap at the new daycare.  Needless to say as they took the casting of his leg, quickly showed us what the brace would look like, and we picked out the perfect decal for it (patriots logo of course) I wasn't paying close attention-just trying to keep the kiddo calm.  I looked at the brace quickly and thought OK if this is what we have to do then we will do it.

Two weeks later Noah and I headed back to Children's for our epic morning of appointments.  Of course we were late so in the process of getting out the door at a reasonable hour I forgot to bring his new shoes.  The woman who had made his brace said he would need bigger shoes for the brace so I had planned on bringing the bigger size of shoes I had bought a month ago on sale for Noah to grow into.  Oh well I thought-I'm sure we can make these work.  Unfortunately I was mistaken.  As the woman brought out Noah's brace I was amazed at how large it actually was. She trimmed off some excess plastic and slipped Noah's foot/leg into it.  We attempted to put his shoe on over it but there was no way that was going to happen.  She politely told me that Noah still had "pudgy" baby feet that were quite wide.  She suggested I find shoes that came in extra wide because they would probably be the only ones that would fit. 

After his nap later that afternoon I put the brace on Noah for the first time.  Much easier to put on than I thought but again much bigger than I had remembered-also a lot more dangerous!  Noah loves to kick when he is on his changing table and I thought he was going to kick right through the table with that big piece of plastic on his leg.  Anyway I got out the new "bigger" shoes and attempted to put them on.  Again no freaking way that was going to happen so it was off to Stride Rite we went.  We explained our situation to the sales person and showed her the brace.  She brought out some extra wide shoes for Noah and they seemed to fit over the brace.  The only problem was to get them big enough to fit on his right foot the shoe on his left was huge!  She assured me that they fit fine and off we went.

Since then I have been obsessing over his shoes!  They seem to fit OK but I'm still convinced they are too big.  I have gotten suggestions on special shoes made just for AFOs, places that will sell you two different size shoes (Nordstrom's will but only if one is 1 1/2 sized different-in case you were wondering), and what brand makes the widest shoes.  I have talked to his PT, the people at his daycare, and even posted about it on Facebook.  I have  been worrying about what he will do in the summer and can he even wear sandals?  It's all really silly when I think about it and today I came to the conclusion that we will figure it out. It's just one more thing we hadn't planned on but we will learn with Noah on this crazy journey.  And besides-take a look at how much of a difference this big brace and extra wide shoes are making for Noah.  He's walking and it's amazing...