We were in Portland this week for another post-surgical visit for Samuel. We were told that he will be undergoing another surgery within the next 6 months to a year. This next one will help his gait a fair bit and will involve creating a better hip “cup” for his leg to sit in. The surgeon will basically carve out a better fit in his hip area and and reinforcing wires to help it to seat better. He currently has to swing that leg a fair bit in order to get forward motion. Hard to explain. We were expecting the surgery to be a possibility, but perhaps not so soon. We’ll head back to check on things in a few months and will find out more then.

Samuel also had an adjustment made to his boots! His Portland prosthetist has made them a much wider base. He was totally thrilled to get to standing on his own without a stick of furniture to hold onto. He tried a few steps with them and was pretty pleased. We then took them off to make the super long drive home. You see, they no longer fit in his pant legs and lets just say that Mana was glad that she’d bought Sam new undies as he got to show them off around the O&P lab and for the videos they take of him in the motion lab. Lol

I’ll get to altering his clothes tomorrow!

(The glow stick was courtesy of some members of the National Guard that were visiting. Samuel received a glow stick lanyard, a puzzle, mini football, art kit, Dino stickers and a monster truck toy all within 4 hours. The community, volunteers and staff really love spoiling the kids and teens that are in their care. Actually, I think they really just love the kids and teens. Period.)

A little cuteness sent from me…

The #1 question we get asked these days is:

How is Samuel faring?

Pretty good, if he says so himself!

(Oh no!  She isn’t satisfied with only one quick pic!)

Samuel’s leg seems to be healing well.  We fought to keep his incisions clean, closed and infection free.

With only a couple weeks left until his post-surgical follow up visit, we think he’s doing great!

(You’re too funny, Mom!) 

He is still restricted in a few areas likfe weight bearing and bathing, but in true Samuel style he is managing to work around those.

(Maybe if I hide my grin she’ll put away the camera…)

And he keeps us in stitches throughout the day in spite of it all.

(I can’t control it.  The giggles are winning!)

His favourite new thing is to ride around on his padded tummy scooter at breakneck speeds throughout the house.

(GAHHHHHHH!  Mom!) 

And now we are much less worried about him putting weight on his leg.

(That does it!  I give up.  I’m going to dive for cover and hope she can’t find me.  giggle…giggle…giggle  Oh drat!  She heard me!)

Now we just need to keep his bicycle helmet firmly strapped on to protect his little noggin’!

 

Or how about this one?

Or this?

Yeah.

I know.

Cute, right?

Unfortunately, this is the face that Samuel shows the world.

Huh? Why is that unfortunate?

Well, this past week we have been to the ER twice.

Samuel hurt his left leg somehow and he’s letting us know in no uncertain terms that he’s in pain.

However, once we arrive at the ER, this….

is the face that the doctors get to see.

Fortunately, our second trip scored us a specialist who truly heard us and was able to look past all that cuteness.

He sent us home with instructions to keep all that sweetness and light in rest mode over the weekend.  Hopefully the injury is soft tissue related and will show improvement.  If things continue on this path though, we are heading back into the ER on Wednesday morning.  Next steps are a sedated MRI.

It’s painful to see him hurting and not know how to help him.

And it hurts to see him try to be so winsome all the time.

He’s a special little man and we can’t wait for the day when he is free to be just Samuel.

 And not Samuel on stage.

Will you keep him in your prayers for the next bit?