New Brace And A Family Adventure

On Tuesday we had an appointment to get Kadence's cast taken off and get her new brace fitted and adjusted. We then were supposed to go back down on Wednesday to talk to her Dr and talk about the xrays. On Monday, David decided that he would just take 2 complete days off rather than a whole day and a half day. Because of this we decided to head to Park City for a night and make it a little family adventure. Our girls LOVE adventures and we go on them often. An adventure can be anything from going and getting an ice cream cone to Disneyland. Either way they have loved every one we've been on. Staying at Park City would also save drive time since we wouldn't have to drive back and forth to Ogden. I was really excited, except we decided so late Monday night that I couldn't pack until Tuesday morning. It was spontaneous which usually isn't me at all. I like to plan and re plan everything.

I forgot my camera...OF COURSE so all the pictures are off of my phone and aren't the best quality.

We headed down to Shriners Tuesday morning and geared up for our LONG appointment. Last time it took 6 hours. This time was much shorter, thankfully. We had decided a long time ago to bring Shelby with us. I absolutely hate leaving her behind all the time while we care for Kadence and since this isn't a "sick" hospital we figured it would be fine to bring her. We also were thinking the girls could entertain each other. It worked!

We first got Kadence's cast cut off. Here she is happy as can be to have it off.

You can tell on the above picture that her belly is irritated, but I am giving you a close up anyways. (below) For the past 3 weeks or so Kadence had a big bulge from where her cast stopped to where her crotch started. At first we thought it was just that she had a full bladder, but it wasn't. We contacted Shriners and they weren't too concerned with it at all. They figured that she wasn't having bladder control problems and she wasn't complaining of pain. Her Care coordinator did add that she didn't trust Kadence to tell us if she's in pain because of her last little infected incident. After taking the cast off we could see that if we would have gone much longer her entire belly area would have gotten a pressure sore because she grew too much while in the cast. (On a side note, I just HATE seeing how deformed she always looks. I hope it all goes away eventually)

GROSS ALERT:

Ok, so the reason for the smell was because a piece of bark from the playground went down Kadence's cast and started getting an infected area. Luckily it seems as though it was pretty recent and so it hadn't quite gotten to the terrible point of the last nasty sore. I took a picture of the bark in her shirt surrounded by the nasty infection/puss/nasty. I broke the piece because at first we weren't sure what it was.

Here's my happy Kadence waiting for her Orthotic appointment. With her backpack of things to do. (I'm a well prepared mama!)

Her usual orthotic guy, Scott, is out for 6 weeks so we had someone different. He walked in with a BLUE brace that had planets all over it. I told him that I thought he had the wrong room and he said, "No, the brace has Kadence's name on it." I then explained to him that was NOT the brace she had picked out. I almost burst into tears. It was definitely a little boy pattern and not even close to the purple stars brace she had picked out. He went to adjust some of it and Kadence said, "Why do I get a boy brace?" It almost broke my heart. He came back in and told us that the note and order said "stars" and he has no idea why we got "planets." Ok, great now people will think I beat my child AND wonder why a little girl is wearing such a boy pattern. We then started trying to convince Kadence how awesome her brace was because there was nothing we could do about it.

We have some amazing friends who live in Salt Lake and invited us to lunch. It was such a nice thing to spend time with friends AND have our girls sit pretty well most of lunch. At one point Amy asked Kadence if she liked her brace and she said, "It's not my favorite." Ugh, I almost cried. It breaks my heart to know she not only will start Kindergarten with everyone looking at her because she's different but she won't even like her brace she has to wear.

After our yummy lunch we headed up for our "adventure." We got checked into the hotel and then headed out shopping. David and I got a few things and then we went to walmart to let the girls pick a prize. Kadence got a puzzle and Shelby got a fishing game.

We then decided it was time for dinner. I had a coupon for New York Pizza company so we decided we'd go try it out. Plus, it was open mic night! We started out with no idea where we were going, but then I remembered we could use the Navigation on our phones. We found the restaurant, walked to the door, and then realized it was closed Mondays and Tuesdays during the 'down season.' DANG! We got the girls some McDonalds and then we went swimming!

Here's Kadence all ready to go.

Here's Shelby checkin herself out in the mirror

It was so funny because when we got down to the pool Kadence said, "Daddy do I look sexy?" It made me laugh SO hard.

After swimming David gave the girls a bath and I gave them some new Spring PJ's. They LOVE pajamas and I had bought these a while ago. Now that the weather is warm enough for short sleeve PJ's I figured why not bring it on our adventure? Needless to say the girls enjoyed it.

David and I decided we were getting hungry, but it was late and not very many places were open. We finally figured out that Domino's was open so we placed an order online. I mapquested directions....but left them on our bed in the hotel. I though I could remember them alright so we headed out. We quickly realized that I could NOT remember them well enough so we stopped at a Chevron to ask for directions. Its the only Domino's in the area so we figured they would know what we were looking for. Unfortunately David said that they had no idea what he was saying and in broken English told him that they didn't know. He then asked where Ute Blvd was because we knew that was a direction and they said they didn't know where Ute Blvd was. Great, our pizza was probably ready and we had no idea how to get to it. Then I again remembered the Navigation on our phones. It sent us off on our way back to Ogden then looped us back toward Park City. We were sort of lost. Then the Navigation told us that we were there and we couldn't see a Domino's anywhere. We then realized that in a very normal building that blended in with all the others there was a simple very plain sign that said Domino's. What? Where was the red and blue? Anyways we got our pizza and then the Navigation gave us very simple directions home. We laughed because we couldn't figure out why it didn't send us to Domino's the way it sent us back to the hotel. We laughed even harder when we realized that the Chevron was ACTUALLY ON Ute Blvd!

We got home, ate, and tucked the girls in bed.

A while back I also ordered some fleece blankets that had Jack Skelington on them. The girls were so excited because they both also LOVE blankets. If you go in Kadence's room she literally has a stack of blankets from her dresser to the ceiling. I can't reach the top so David always has to get her blankets down.

The girls slept pretty well all night minus Kadence's 5 or 6 trips to the bathroom.

The next day we slept in, got ready, ate breakfast and headed back to Salt Lake. We figured we would let the girls play at a park for 45 minutes because we were early, but it was a little windy and chilly so instead we went to Temple Square to look at all the pretty flowers.

The girls ARE in the picture below, they are just really tiny.

We headed back up to Shriners and had a few adjustments done to Kadences brace. Then we talked with the new orthotic guy and he said that after he and Kadence's Dr looked at the xray they were very pleased. He said that they are about at the same curve as she was in her cast which is GREAT news. Usually you don't get anywhere near the same in cast as in brace. He then explained that her rotation that is in her lumbar was actually more corrected in her brace than it was in her cast. Even better news! We have never had a brace that has her at such a good spot to start off with. She tends to regress rapidly and I doubt this will be any different, but at least she is starting off at a good place. We waited almost an hour and a half past our appointment before the Dr came in and he only talked to us for about 5 minutes. It was sort of a waste of time because he didn't even tell us much other than we will do her next cast in the Fall. He sent us over to Orthotics for one more tiny adjustment and we were done!

We decided to add one more stop and go to Ben & Jerry's at the Gateway. None of us had ever eaten there before and again, I had a coupon. We all enjoyed our ice cream and headed back to reality. David has a summer class that started today at 4:30 so we could only stay and play for so long. I am so glad we were able to spend time together as a family. It was the best Mothers Day present I could have asked for. Plus we will get to do it again this month since I have another gift certificate for Best Western that expires at the end of the month.