Ada's surgery Wed. went even better than I expected - as far as convenience goes ;) I was expecting to be there 2 days. We were able to go home the same day.

Here's the deal; she has hemiplegic cerebral palsy (which you already know) that affects her right side.

She walks on her right toes, and so the top half of her calf muscle is REALLY tight (so is here Achilles heel) making it impossible for her to go all the way flat on her foot without hyper extending her knee.

The surgery was basically a calf extension (I don't know ho they did it), but now her foot goes all the way to the ground. She will be in a cast for 4 weeks and then a splint after that for a little while, until we can get her weak muscles strengthened (with therapy). This will all hopefully improve her gait permanently, so that she can walk and run 'normally". This is important because she trips a lot and it affected her posture, (we've been worried about her developing scoliosis).

She was a fun little patient. Not ever nervous, always cheerful, and has hardly complained at all. The only time she started complaining was when her room mate (who had a much more severe procedure done) began crying and writhing in pain. Many people came to her aid with lotion, ice packs, back rubs and wheel chair rides. Ada observed all this very carefully and then, coincidentally, she suddenly and dramatically began undergoing more than she could bear. The theatrics were very convincing to the nurse. Soon Ada was gaily enjoying her own wheelchair ride and her pain control was promoted from just regular Motrin to the Lortab.

She's already walking around in her cast...so it looks like things are going well for her. I'm really excited and I hope this helps her out a lot.

Anyway, that's the update. Her cast is bright green with purple hearts on it. She loves it, and has been getting so much attention. It's kind of stealing the thunder from Jack and Ada's birthday today (she's getting loads of attention and get well gifts), which is noticeably bothering Jack.

....all that twirling for the camera reminds me of her Aunt Kate!

Ada at the Gait Analysis Lab, Shriner's Hospital 4/23/07.

She was an adorable little patient. They video taped her walking, running and doing all sorts of tricks. The only thing that made it difficult for the therapist was that Ada kept looking at herself in the monitor (she loved seeing herself on TV). She would smile, twirl and spin...finally they had to turn off the monitor for a minute so that they could get her to walk across the room away from the TV. (They turned it back on though and let her spin to her hearts content). They hooked her up with all sorts of high-tech gear. They could see which muscles were firing, when and for how long. Then they stuck all those balls on her and created a computer animation of her gait. It was all pretty amazing. They will do this again a year after her surgery.