Adventures in Broderick Land

Well it has been somewhat of a crazy couple month for us. As some of you might know Darron was born with Bilateral Clubfeet that he was treated for when he was a baby. In the last couple years he has had a bit of a relapse and he feet started turning in a little again. We took him to a doctor last fall here in Oklahoma who suggested a surger to fix it where they would just move bone from one side of his foot to another and put in some pins and that would fix the problem. Well as you can imagin that didn't sit very well with me since my son in only 6 and has a lot of growing to do so I started to so some research online and made a few calls to see if I could get a second opinion. Online I found out about Dr. Ponseti at Iowa University (who is 95 by the way) who actually is who people told me to contact. He is the clubfeet guru and so I e-mailed him. They responded (I am assuming he has to hire someone just to respond to his e-mails) and asked for some pictures, videos and his xrays. After I set all that off he refered me to Dr. Morcuende who handles a lot of his patient load since he is getting up there in years and he thought Darron would be able to go through a series of castings and have some physical therapy and bracing to fix the problem. I asked his Doctor here in April if he could do the same treatment and he said no I would have to go there to get that treatment so I did. Our first appointment was set up for June 1st. So I loaded up the kiddos on May 30th and kissed my hubby goodbye for who knows how long and headed to Iowa City. I am so blessed because my sister Crystal and her husband Curtis just happen to live there because he is finishing up PA school. So they were kind enough (and I mean kind) to let us stay with them. We had a total of 4 castings over 3 weeks. Darron was such a trooper. He never complained about the casting more than the fact that it was keeping us from getting to go home. We drove down Mimi and Papa's house in Kentucky for one week to kind of break it up a bit. Joe flew up toward the end of the trip and so we got to be in Iowa to see Curtis graduate and to be there for Kael's blessing. We finally got home on June 23rd. It was hard but we survived. Thanks Crystal, Curtis, Mimi and Papa for putting up with us. We had a lot of fun, you guys are the best. Here are a few pictures of our adventures. (The pictures are in backwards order sorry)

The finished product. Look at those skinny legs. The sore on his right ankle was so horrible but he didn't seem to mind much just as long as the casts were gone.

Cutting off the casts old school style. It only took 5 hours. It is amazing what a pair of wire cutters and some wrenchs can do.

This was his last set of casts that he had on for 2 1/2 weeks. Yes it did smell when we took them off!

This was his second casting. He was practically on his tiptoes.

Alyse in the car on our way to the Superman festival. Metropolis, IL is just across the river from Paducah, KY where Mimi and Papa are.

Darron showing his excitement to go to the Superman Festival. It was okay but there were to many men in tights for my liking:)

Darron's first day walking on casts. Each time he got casts on he couldn't walk for 24 hours. As if he weren't heavy enough try lugging him around in those.

Darron during his first casting. He is waiting for the plaster to set up before they put the fiberglass cast over the top.

Darron just chillin' before they get started.