This Baby's Stylin'

This little gal just got some new boots today! Her original appointment to see Dr. Herring and get fitted for new boots was October 31st, but for some reason they cancelled clinic on that day and re-scheduled everyone to November 7th. Kenna Bug couldn't wait that long! She has grown out of her little size 000 boots and her toes are hanging off the end and she has a blister on the instep of her right foot because her feet are getting chunkier. We're excited, but had to schedule an earlier day to get her new boots and they squeezed us in today. She was SOOO good while we were there (as usual!) and charmed both of the orthopedists. Sweet thing!
TA DA!

She went from a size 000
The 000's and the bar
'Bye teeny tiny shoes! Hello not as teeny tiny but still teeny tiny shoes!
(New shoes on the left on the bar)

She now wears a size 00 (left) and her old boots (size 000) are on the right. YEAH! We're slowly, but surely moving up to a size 1! The guy at Scottish Rite that fit her for her shoes today said they make these shoes as small as a 0000 and sometimes that's too big! TINY feet! Kenna Bug's feet are so small that Newborn shoes are big on her so I can't imagine having feet smaller than hers! She's going to go in on November 7th to see Dr. Herring and have him check her progress, so stay tuned!

Dr. Herring

McKenna's Orthopedic doctor, Dr. Tony Herring, received an award this past month and we saw the article in our Summer issue of Rite Up (The Scottish Rite quarterly newsletter) in the mail. What an honor to have the Chief of Staff and recipient of distinguished awards working on our little Kenna Bug! Her next appointment is on Halloween so we're going to dress her up to see Dr. Herring that day. Stay tuned for super cute pics from that visit!

3 Week Check-up

We went in last Friday to have our first check up on McKenna's feet after having boots and bars put on. Dr. Herring spent all but 2 minutes in the room. He took her boots off, looked her feet over and then smiled and said, "I don't see any indication that her feet will recurr, so she's doing beautifully. Keep doing what you're doing and we'll see you in a few months!" Her feet look BEAUTIFUL!!! They bend every which way, her heels stay down and she loves to kick and flex them when her boots and bars are off. Sweet thing is the ultimate good sport about putting them on and dealing with them. She doesn't even cry anymore when I pin her down to put them back on. What a champ! Her next appointment is October 31st so I informed the nurse, Gwen, that we'd be all dressed up in her ladybug costume next time and she told us that all of the staff dress up too, so it'll be fun to get pictures of everybody. Stay tuned!

NO MORE CASTS!!!

Pretty feet!

Dr. Tony Herring and his M.D. assistant, Suzanne

Gwen Monahan, RN

Felicia Cox, LVN

We went in today to get Cast #4 for McKenna and Dr. Herring was just amazed! He said that her feet look wonderful and he didn't feel she needed anymore casts! He said her flexibility was amazing and that she didn't need the tenotomy (her Achilles tendon cut) or anymore casts and he felt it was time to move her on to the boots and bars!! Chris and I were both fighting tears when we heard this. Dr. Herring said she set a new Olympic record for the clinic of being corrected in only 3 casts!! Before her, the least amount of casts used for correction was 4. She is an AmAzInG little person! She is progressing so quickly it's just so wonderful. She will wear the Boots and Bars for about 3-4 months 22 1/2 hours a day and then 12 hours a day (so, technically nighttime and naps) until she's 3 or 4 years old. She will be a normal kid who can run and play and that makes us so happy. Way to go, Kenna Bug! We are love you and are so proud of you!!

Celebrity

Uncle Cameron
Cousin Noah

McKenna is our own little celebrity. She gets her casts signed every week by different people and it's fun to see how much she's loved. This week we had some special signatures...cousin Noah left his mark, along with Uncle Logan and a few of Chris's co-workers.

Cast Removal

Cast #3

Look how straight her feet are getting!
Re-casting
Dr. Herring working his magic
The Red Plaster Team:

Gwen-Dr. Herring's nurse, Suzanne-Dr. Herring's Assisting MD, Dr. Tony Herring, Felicia-another nurse, and Deborah-Child Life Specialist

(she helps McKenna stay distracted and she's SOO nice!)

The new casts

So here we are! Already on cast #3 of the series! Dr. Herring said McKenna is coming along nicely and that her feet are looking great. She's such a trooper! She cried a little at this casting because they manipulated her feet a little further than they did last time. Now they overcorrect her feet so that the muscles and ligaments stretch and she doesn't have stiff feet and is able to learn to crawl and walk. There may even be a slight chance that she doesn't have to have the tenotomy (her Achilles tendons cut!) so we're crossing our fingers for that one! Dr. Herring and his team are just great, though. We really feel confident in their abilities and they are so kind to McKenna and seem so happy to see her every week. It's nice to feel like we're among friends.

Cast #2

Look at the difference after just one week of casting!
This week's new casts. Much better looking than last week's!

Well, we now have cast #2 of the series on! McKenna was SUCH a trooper! She didn't cry at all when they used the cast saw to remove her casts and when they pried them open to get them off and took her first bottle like a champ while they were re-casting both legs. She didn't cry one little bit! She is so brave and her feet look AWESOME! Dr. Herring said her feet are moving quite nicely and they are very pliable, so that's a good thing. Maybe less time in casts! We are so proud of her and can't wait until these casts are off for good!

Meet McKenna

Our First Family Photo

Pretty Girl!



She DOES have both feet! The way they were casted just looks funny

McKenna was born July 10th 2008! We are so excited to have her as part of our family and every day is a new experience for us. McKenna is our first born and such a good baby! We're so blessed to have such a sweet, beautiful baby in our home.

McKenna was born with bilateral club feet due to her breech position during the last few weeks in the womb. At about 36 weeks McKenna flipped to the breech position and there she sat until she was delivered via c-section. When she was born, the first thing her Daddy said to me was "Something's wrong with her feet! They're turned in" which, of course, just sent me into a panic. There I am, strapped to an operating table, unable to even see my precious baby girl and I'm told this kind of news. I was terrified! Thoughts started racing through my head "will she be alright?" "will she be able to walk?" "will she be made fun of?" "will she be in pain?" etc. Over the next few days in the hospital I cried A LOT when no one was around and just rocked my precious baby. What the heck WAS Club Foot anyway? What did this mean and was it fixable? Would we be able to afford to fix it? I was a mess! I love my sweet baby girl and I was just aching for her. Then, her pediatrician, Dr. Elizabeth Dickey, came in and talked to us about McKenna's condition. She said club feet are TOTALLY fixable (and common!), they just became this way because of how McKenna had been positioned in the womb those last few weeks of life, this was really NO BIG DEAL, and she had already referred us to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas and our first appointment was already scheduled for Friday July 25th. Oh, and did I mention her treatments would be FREE?! Yeah, free! TSRHC is a Masonic Charity that has never billed any patient so much as one penny for services rendered at their facility, AND they're one of the leading facilities in the entire United States in Pediatric Orthopedics. We are in good hands!

So, then I had a whole new reason to cry! McKenna could be healed in a matter of months, it would be pretty much painless and it wouldn't bankrupt us! I don't know why Heavenly Father saw fit to give McKenna (and us, her parents) this special challenge, but we're ready! This isn't a curse, it isn't a tragedy it's an adventure! So here's to McKenna, our brave little girl, and her adventure to new feet! We love you, Kenna Bug! Let's do this!