Botox round 1

So we went ahead and did it in the beginning of January. I was hoping to put up some pics of "before and after", particularly with her ankle and gait so that I could go "Oh gosh, look at what a difference!" But alas, that ankle still was collasping in a fair amount. And the night splint we had made for her to stretch out her calf muscles was too tight and we had some skin breakdown... so she got casted and I couldn't see her ankle anyway.

Before- Lefty ankle collapsing in and some hyperextension at the knee

     

Her gait did in fact look much better with the cast on. There was a lot less hyperextending of the knee, her hips were more equal and her squats were much better. And once the cast came off, OMG the ability to stretch that girl... it was fantastic, stretches had not been that easy since she was little little!

After- casted and running around

I think lefty arm benefited the most from the botox, Annabelle was much easier to stretch here as well BUT the huge thing has been her paying much more attention to lefty arm! It's kind of funny sometimes because she'll treat her hand like another friend "Hi lefty, hi lefty." and "Lefty open". She's also reaching out from the elbow much more on her own to chase after bubbles and using lefty to help hold her babies, because we need to carry around at least 2! We're still working at her actually grabbing but on her own, because that's the only way girlfriend likes to do things, she has opened lefty and grabbed objects a few times!!!

Overall we will likely continue to do botox in the future as we saw a benefit with a total low dose for her weight. I think next time we will see about increasing the amount of drug that goes into her leg and maybe slightly higher in the arm and thumb, it wore off awfully quick!

Making Valentine's to send out to the fam!