Update on Noah

This is the latest update on Noah, from his mom Kate's Facebook page.  Please keep them uplifted in prayer.

Just got home from our ortho appointment. It was a hard appointment. Noah has very tight ankles and knees (his feet are pulled back toward his calves and his knees don't straighten completely). It's a lot worse than it was at our last visit earlier this year. We'd hoped that we could use night-time splints to gradually stretch his ankles. These are splints that are initially set to the same angle as the ankle and are gradually tightened to stretch the ankle back out and bring it into correct positioning.

After looking Noah over, our ortho feels that Noah's ankles are too tight for the splints to work and that the only way to improve his ankle tone would be to do surgery on both ankles. His knees are in the same situation. We won't do surgery (and he didn't recommend doing it) because there is no point - if we thought he'd be walking, we'd do it because he couldn't ever walk again with these contractures in his ankles and knees.

It just made us so sad. He recommended AFO's (ankle foot orthotics) made to Noah's foot angle just to keep his feet from pulling back even more. He said they almost certainly will continue to contract, but wearing AFO's should slow it down.

Like Jeff commented tonight, there just aren't any good doctor's visits any more. There are no more quick fixes, easy plans, or simple decisions.

Noah still looks "OK" - not terrible, not great. He's not sick but doesn't seem totally well either.