Justin seemed to have a difficult time with the surgeries. He had four total where he had to stay overnight after each one. He also was very uncomfortable with the casting afterwards.
The first surgery was to start correcting the worst of his two feet. The doctor believed this to be Justin's right foot. They extended his tendons and put a pin in the joint to keep it in place. It was difficult but also a relief to know that his feet were going to be corrected and he will be able to walk.
The second surgery was to remove the pin from his right foot and extend the left foot. The doctor realized that his left foot was actually the worse foot. He had to cut tendons that he had never cut before. The foot was so bad that he was unable to put the pin in the joint because of how tight it was. This would add an additional surgery that Justin would need. This worried us. As parents, you want to make sure your children have everything they need to succeed. It breaks a parents heart to see their child having to struggle through life.
The third surgery was to place the pin in the left foot if it would stretch enough. It was successful. The pin went in and his foot was recasted.
The final surgery was to remove the pin from the left foot. We were excited for the surgeries to be over. The surgery was successful also.
After all of the surgeries, we started to notice changes in Justin. Aside from learning how strong he was, Justin's appetite started to change drastically. He became very anxious, angry and frustrated at the littlest things. He wouldn't look you in the face and had to have EVERYTHING a particular way or he lost it. The biggest issue that started was how he NEVER slept. This became a strain on our family. I had very little sleep. I would have to sleep on the floor with my arms wrapped around him while he sat and watch sesame street at three in the morning. We were so involved in taking care of his feet and being first time parents, we never mentioned any of it to the doctors. Family kept explaining that it was all
typical for baby boys. We just kept moving forward with correcting Justin's feet.
As time went on, Justin would get cast changes every 2 weeks while everything healed completely. He actually had cast changes almost every week because he would bust a whole in the heal from slamming his foot down on the floor while playing. The fiberglass cast didn't have a chance. LOL.
Justin finally had the last cast removed in January 2000. We were ecstatic. He immediately started crawling and pulling himself up on things. He started walking at a year old which was around the time we moved back to Texas with another bundle of joy on the way.
