After such a fun filled family weekend away with so many sporting activities, today's visit to the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital in Stanmore North London stopped us in our tracks and made Woody and I feel a little glum today. George has had so many ups and downs but has done so well getting through each and every one of them. As if he's not already had enough come his way, today the prospect of a body brace for the next 10 years was thrown his way.
At the end of the day we know a body brace isn't all that bad. He's alive, he's currently cancer free and he's mobile... but that doesn't stop us both sulking like a child. The idea of locking him into a body brace for 18-20 hours a day isn't exactly a pleasant one, let alone something we'll enjoy negotiating with our stubborn five-year-old. But as you can see from today's x-ray on the right, the curvature of his spine has progressed quite a lot since the x-ray taken after his surgery last year, which you can see on the lefthand side in today's picture.
As it happens George's curve isn't an awful one and we knew from the nature of his cancer surgery this could always happen. The fact it's moved to a 35 degree angle in under twelve months is what brought up today's conversation. Typically at a 30 degree curve consultants step in with a brace as intervention as, when it comes to young kids, it's a good time to stop things getting any worse as their bodies are still so very pliable.
George still has around 10 more skeletal years of growing so with the help of a solid body brace it could help him grow up straighter than he would otherwise. We discussed how it would be pretty miserable for him to wear it for such a long time into his teens. So to that point today we all agreed to see how things progress and for us to come back for a review in 4 months time.
There's just so many advantages to not inhibiting his movement, not least after his last year's cancer treatment he's been through. But it's more than likely things will get progressively worse so we have the joy of locking him into a new body brace world from the start of the new school year ☹️
Add to that Eefije flying home today just means we're both having a bit of a sulk today. I know we'll get over it and it's nothing compared to what so many other kids have to tackle so soon enough we'll have a little word with ourselves and get over it!
Between us we've got this.
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