Our GREAT adventure

Sooooo we call it the great adventure around these parts. But we are MOVING TO FLORIDA.... Yes you read that correctly. We are moving to Florida. I think that it will be super fun for our family to move to another place and get to know other people. I am really excited, nervous, and scared out of my mind... Though if we are being honest I am just excited to get a new change of scenery. And the east coast by the ocean seems like the perfect ticket.

While we are moving to Florida, it is not permanent. And that is the best (or worst) part. Savannah is having her LONG AWAITED SURGERY!!! To lengthen her leg. We can hardly wait. We don't even know what we are going to do?!?! It is going to be hard, uncomfortable, devastating, painful, boring, full of ups and downs, but mostly exciting. We are going to lengthen her leg by 6 cm. I can't believe that they can do this. It's awesome!!!!

We are seeing Dr. Dror Paley in Florida on west palm beach. He is the world renowned surgery for this procedure. I know that this is what we are supposed to be doing. There are many surgeons out there who do this procedure but this gut is the one that you want cutting your child open and growing bone. He is the shiz. He is famous! He is hard working! His office is like no other that I have seen. He has a physical therapy office, play area for kids, patient care coordinators to take care of the kids while the parents are in meeting with him. He has a lab, a radiology department, surgical wing, post op wing. When I grow up and go to medical school I want to work with Dr. Paley ... Because he is the bomb. He never sleeps he never eats he is always on call and always putting his patients first... Actually I hope that he does all these things because he IS going to be performing surgery on my savannah.

So there are two devices. And external fixator and an internal fixator. The external one is mostly like the halos you would see on people who break their necks. There are bolts and screws, pin care, increases risk for infection, and a pretty big lifestyle change. We opted not to use this device because of Savannah's picking problem. The risk do infection would be great. Also the after scarring is horrible. I am not super vain I don't think but I saw the I test little 4 year old girl with 4 scars 5 inches long and 1 inch wide.... Luckily the Paley institute also gives the option for plastic surgery when you are done ;)

The internal device as best as I can describe it is a rod is inserted into the bone (the femur in this case) and the none must be a certain diameter in order for the rod to fit into it. This is why we have waited to do the surgery this summer so that Savannah's bone could grow. Then there is an external magnetic device that we use to turn 3 times a day 0.25 mm each time for a total of 0.75 mm/day. We have physical therapy daily at the office and this is why we must live in Florida for 16 weeks. Hopefully it is only for 14 weeks but I'm being realistic here.

It will be a great adventure. We have someone to watch the dog and we have someone to watch the house. We are taking a family friend to help watch the girls with me when Doug is not available. We have a cute little condo to rent and are equipping our car for the long Road trip. Wish is luck!!!!