Emma rocks a new look

December 14, 2014

Emma rocks a new look

So continuing along with the our lives have been absolutely crazy these last few months theme...We have just returned from an unplanned second trip to San Diego and a few things have changed for Emma. Here is the long story as short as I can make it... We have not been so happy with our treatment options here in Las Cruces for Emma's scoliosis so on a whim I checked into doctors that were specialists in scoliosis that might be near us. I kept coming up with Rady's Children's hospital in San Diego. It was consistently ranked near the top for pediatric orthopedics. I decided to give them a call and see if we could get a second opinion. Originally, I assumed we might get an appointment in March and have to drive back out to San Diego then. I was prepared to do whatever it took to get Emma better care even if it meant making that 10 hour drive more often to get it. So I called the office and jokingly said that I would be in San Diego the next week for Thanksgiving and did they have an appointment. Lo and behold they had one random appointment that even the scheduler was surprised was there. It was even with the head of the Department. So on Tuesday of Thanksgiving week we went to Rady's in the hopes of being accepted as a new patient. I was not sure how the whole thing would pan out considering we had just gotten Emma in her very expensive brace here in Las Cruces....I wasn't sure if this new Doctor would want her to see a brace maker in San Diego and how long that would take or how many trips out there to get the process complete. Her brace here took several appointments over the course of several weeks to get it finished and adjusted so driving back and forth to San Diego within weeks would be problematic and flying is expensive...... Back to the story...We met with the Doctor and had a terrific experience. His entire staff bent over backwards to help us and were supportive of Emma in the process. They answered more of our questions, made us feel more confident with her course of treatment and even had a cool new xray machine that uses 9 times less radiation than traditional xrays...this is particularly helpful for scoliosis patients because during treatment they receive so many xrays. We also discovered that he was an in network provider which meant that our insurance would cover it. They said that it was not uncommon for people to travel to them for care and they were willing to help us make it happen. We were then able to go directly to the orthotist to have Emma fitted for a new brace. No appointment but they saw us anyway. Several things would be different and much better with the new brace. It would be in a cool color of Emma's choosing, it would strap in the front enabling Emma to get in and out of it by herself and it would be created from a 3-d cast molding specifically for her. Her current brace was a little less lo-tech. Best of all, our insurance agreed to pay for the new brace (did I mention that they are not cheap). The only glitch was that it would take a week to make and then she would have to wear it for a week to adjust to it before finally getting new in brace xrays. So we began to hatch a plan to make it happen. Uncle Mark and Aunt Diane graciously offered to keep Emma for the week while the rest of us drove home. I had several appointments I had to keep and the girls had to get back to school. Emma would stay and complete her homeschooling in San Diego. So off we went without Emma. It was tough to leave her but I think she had a pretty good time while we were gone. The other small glitch was that when we arrived back in NM Matt remembered that he was leaving town the next week on a work trip. The same week I would fly back to San Diego. Oops. We scrambled around to find someplace for Rachel and Hannah to stay as well as rides to and from all their activities. Davie and Kelly stepped in to help us and I am so appreciative for that. So I then flew back to San Diego a week later to get Emma. Her brace was done and she had her initial fitting. Usually, it takes several weeks of wearing it to incrementally build up to the full 23 hours a day. Unfortunately, we only had a week so we squeezed her into it and off we went. We spent a couple of days with Tracy, a couple of days with Grandma and Grandpa and a couple of days with Mark and Diane. Emma was a trooper wearing that thing the full 23 hours each day. She was bruised and really sore and basically never complained. When we finally went back to the Doctor a week later they said she was remarkable....I tend to agree and was feeling so proud of her tenacity. So we had her in brace xrays and all that squeezing and tightening achieved lots of in brace correction in her curve, which was exactly what we wanted while she continues to grow. We had only a few alterations to make with the orthotist and we could go home to New Mexico the next day. We had been dropped off at our appointment at Rady's and were not expecting to need to go anywhere else so when they said we had to got to the orthotists office a mile and a half away we said no problem, we will walk. They looked at us like we weer crazy. It was dark and the neighborhood was a little sketchy (juvenile detention center was a highlight on the tour) but Emma and I were at the tail end of a crazy ride to get her switched to San Diego and would have done just about anything at that point. I will always remember that walk with Emma. Excited to have gotten such good news, laughing at having worn cute boots instead of walking shoes and trying to find our way using mapquest in the total dark. It reminded me that being strong and doing what needs to be done without complaining is something I love about Emma. Having this brace is her "thing" according to Emma. She said it is the thing that will make everything else seem easy in life. I sometimes wish this process were easier for her, that she had more than 1 hour each day out of the brace, that she didn't get bruises and rashes, that she slept more comfortably or that she could breath without her lungs being squeezed by that dumb thing. Then I remember that this is making her stronger and more able to roll with the flow of life. I tried to keep that in mind when I got back to the airport in El Paso and was greeted with a completely dead battery in Long Term Parking!