Medical updates

   I realize that mostly only family is interested in this post but it does get hard to repeat over and over so this is easier. Since Kannika became eligible for insurance after becoming a US citizen we have been to lots of doctors and she has had lots of tests done. Some of the tests told us exactly what we already knew and some of the tests gave us some surprises.
  I will start from the beginning. The first doctor we saw was the pediatric orthopedic surgeon for the obvious deformity in her leg. He ordered some x-rays and I thought he would tell us there was no bone involvement and refer us to a plastic surgeon. Well, I was surprised when he told us there were several things wrong with her leg. Starting at the foot and extending all the way up to her hip. If she wasn't my little girl I would have been more fascinated by what he was telling me. The nurse in me wanted to listen but the mom in me just kept hearing "we have to watch this and keep on eye on this". The obvious was her extra toe with lots of extra fatty tissue. That one was an easy one and she is scheduled for surgery Sept. 30th to get that taken off. She also has what is called a Z-foot which means instead of her foot bones forming like ours do (straight) hers form more of a Z inside of her foot. She also almost no spacing in between her growth plates (all of them) on the affected leg and the Dr. wasn't quite sure what that was going to mean. Her ankle bones are forming a bit crooked but he thinks that might but from the foot deformity (the extra toe and fatty tissue). He is hoping that will resolve after the surgery. She also has a "marking" on her tibia. The Dr. couldn't quite tell if it was a cyst or a whole or possibly a tumor forming. He is supposed to be looking at her MRI to determine what that is. Obviously as a mom my mind went straight to bone cancer but the nurse in me keeps telling me that is incredibly unlikely and I should wait for the Dr. to get the information off of the Thai MRI dvd. Moving up to her knees she is "knock-Kneed" on that side but he thinks it will straighten out after we fix her foot. She has a thicker femur on the affected side also and it is growing slightly curved also. She doesn't have much of a hip socket but that was another wait and see thing. Her affected leg is also longer and he said we have to watch it to see if it gets worse. So basically from the Orthopedic dr. it was A LOT of waiting but she is going to get her extra toe fixed so that is nice. She will be able to wear boots this winter. :)
  The next Dr. was the Urologist. She needed an ultrasound on her kidneys to make sure they are not affected by her extra tissue disorder. So far they are not which is excellent news! The urologist is also going to schedule surgery to remove some extra tissue and hopefully make her less likely to get infections in the future. We are hoping she can do it at the same time as the other surgery but we will see. 
  The next Dr. was the dermatologist. She has had a funny raised rash on her since we picked her up and her foster mom said it had always been there. We did find out that is also genetic and there is nothing we can do about it. It will actually thicken and get worse as she gets older and especially during puberty.
  She did also have blood work done for regular things like immunity to common diseases and testing for some other diseases. We haven't gotten the results for those back yet but I don't expect any surprises there. She has been pretty healthy for the almost 1 year that we have had her. 
  So to sum up she has surgery scheduled for Sept. 30th and everything else is a waiting game. I love her so much and sometimes my heart hurts for her with everything she has already gone through she has to have physical pain too but she is so strong. God definitely equipped her for her life. One very small example of her tough personality is she got her ears pierced last week and barely cried. She hasn't complained once since then about them and she loves to show them off.