Dave Massy's Spaces Blog

It's snowing again here on Dec 24th. We've had snow for nearly a week now with a big dump last Thursday and more snow on Sunday and staying below freezing most days. The roads are slippy as they thaw in the day but refreeze at night. Some of the roads get plowed but the Redmond roads are just compacted snow. If you do make it down there then you are likely to injure yourself slipping over in the parking lot.

The novelty of snow is beginning to wear off. We've got all we need for Christmas though and will probably stay home today rather than venture out in the car.

In other news. The entire family is doing fine. Hugh is excited about Christmas. Tonight he's going to leave some refreshments out for Santa - Chips, Milk, Carrot and Broccoli. I have no idea why he thinks Santa likes Broccoli!
Emily is standing and crawling everywhere. Her hips seem fine. We have another checkup on Jan 8th but at the moment she just wears the brace at night.
Someone drove into the back of the car behind Melissa a couple of weeks ago when she stopped for a dear. The car a Toyota Camry was pushed into the back of Melissa's Honda CRV and totaled. Melissa and the kids were fine although M had a sore neck for a day or two. The Honda needed repair as the floor at the back was squished in. We are meant to pick the car up from repair today and return the rental but I think the snow means we'll stay put at home. We also had to replace the child car seats as a precaution, they looked fine but an impact can damage them. The insurance company has been good and there is no disputing the driver at fault so we'll not have to pay for anything. It's a lot of hassle though and annoying. The Chevy Tahoe SUV that caused the accident was almost unscathed and acted like a bulldozer just crushing the Camry. I hate those big SUVs!

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Emily had her x-ray and hip checkup today. All is developing very well. Her left femoral head (top of the femur) has grown a lot since July and is catching up with the right side. The angles of both hips are getting much closer to the magic 25 degree number. The right side is 25.2 and the left side 26!
All this means that she only needs to be in the brace at night which is cause for huge celebration. We are very happy. After three months in casts and six months in the brace we finally get a squishy little girl to hold again. We'll go back in three months for another checkup and expect to see further improvement.

Emily does have torticollis on the left side of her neck. This is tight neck muscles which is apparently not unknown in infants with hip issues. It means her head is always tilted down on the left. She goes to physical therapy once a week and wears a a neck collar during some of the day and it seems to be improving. Being out of the brace should also improve her posture and we play games to get her to stretch those muscles.

This is such a relief!

You can just see the neck collar on her here.

A new ride on toy for Emily's birthday which gives her plenty of support and makes annoying Winnie the Pooh noises. Hugh loves to drive!

Out of the brace. She can move really quickly now.

Melissa has some very cute pictures of Emily smothering herself in Birthday cake on her camera!

It's way too long since I last posted. Oh dear where does the time go!

Hugh turned 3 last month and is doing great at his preschool three afternoons a week. He's a really fun little boy and a charmer. The other day I was just starting to lose my patience when getting him ready for bed as he kept playing. He sensed it and turned on the charm saying "I'm coming now Daddy! Cos you're my best friend" and he gave me a big hug.

Emily turns one year old tomorrow! She's really starting to look like a little girl rather than a baby and is pulling herself up all the time. On Thursday she gets an x-ray and we'll see how her hips are doing and if we can let her out of the brace a little more. I'm hopeful that the end is in sight but we'll see. With three months between x-rays it's difficult to know how much progress has been made with the angles of the hips. It doesn't seem like her left hip has dislocated at all but I'm not an expert so we really don't know. I'll post here with more news later in the week. Fingers crossed.

Most Elegant at Fifty!
Not me but the car. I've still a few more years to go before I hit fifty although not as many years as I'd like. My Jaguar turned fifty years old this week according to the heritage certificate showing when it was manufactured in Coventry, England. She also won the "Most Elegant" award at the local Jaguar club concours in August which was very nice. Of course I'm biased but I do think it is a rather special car with great lines. It's hard for me to think of a nicer car than an XK 150 OTS! She's under covers in the garage now though as the wet weather has arrived for the winter.

Here's a few pictures from recent months.

The Most Elegant Jaguar!

Uncle Kees from The Netherlands dropped in for lunch in September.

Emily at 11 months old! Out at the train museum. Hugh loves anything to do with trains! Melissa is glad we have a girl now so that not everything we do is focused on boy things!

Sometime since I've posted so here's a random collection of news and updates.

Emily

Emily is doing great. We had a checkup on her hips last week for her hip displasia. The X-ray showed good progress on her hip with the angle they measure now at 30 degrees. The doctor wants more though so she stays in the brace for another three months. That's a bit disappointing as we were hoping to be able to only use the brace at night and let her out more. She really wants to crawl and walk now and the brace is restricting. The doctor says it's dose dependent so the more we keep her in the better the improvement will be. We've got pretty used to the brace and this is a relatively small sacrifice to ensure she can walk, run and play without a limp. It'd still be really nice to get this behind us but the news could have been a lot worse and it is good to know we are headed in the right direction.
She's such an adorable little girl.

Here's the brace she wears. She basically sits in it and and the Velcro straps go round her middle and legs to keep her in. The purpose is to keep her legs pointed out so that the hips develop with the leg in the hip socket.

She comes out for changes, baths and to play in her jumparooo thing which she loves. It is a suspended seat where she can jump up and down.

She's looking very blond now. Some people say she looks serious but she always seems to smile for me. Those moments make me feel great.

Jaguars

My car doesn't get out much but we did have the All British Field Meet here the other day which is a great car show. Lots of British cars turn up. My XK 150 looked great and got lots of compliments which is always nice.

My XK 150 looked great. Hugh liked the Atoms.

Dad

I also got news the my Dad had a heart attack. This is his second in four years. After a few days of worry it looks like he's fine. His last stent had furred up a bit and they put a new one in. That's a relief. It was a wake up call that we hadn't got a passport for Emily so we've expedited getting her one just in case we need to go to England.  It seems silly to me that young children can no longer travel on their parent's passport. We got Hugh's passport when he was 6 months old. The photo is already well out of date. By the time he's five when the passport expires the photo isn't going to be recognisable at all!

All Well

There's other random news but basically we are all doing fine. Kids are hard work but Hugh is potty trained now apart from the occasional accident. He'll be three in September and it's really nice to move on from diapers for him. It'll be even nicer when we get beyond the occasional accident. Melissa is a great Mum to the kids but is occasionally frustrated at not getting out to do something other than look after the kids. She has started a little business selling Usborne books. http://www.melissasbooksathome.com  These are great books for children, if you want a good kids book then take a look there. Hugh loves books and demands lots of reading to these days. He's even making up his own little stories!

Emily is doing great and we are very used to the brace for her hip dysplasia now. Another four weeks and we'll get an X-Ray to see how her hips are doing. If all is well we'll get to take her out of the brace for at least some of the day.

The brace goes outside her clothes so as it gets warmer (summer is finally here) we have to watch it doesn't rub too much if she is in shorts. At 8 and a half months old she's grabbing and babbling just like any baby and the brace really doesn't seem to trouble her and it is fairly unobtrusive. She even tries to crawl in it but isn't too successful yet.

Bath time!

Hugh loves to give Emily hugs. This one looks more like a tackle!

Picnic time for Emily and Hugh.

Shopping at Costco! Hugh and Emily share a cart.

Today Emily got out of her spica cast after twelve weeks. We got down to Children's hospital in Seattle and they cut the cast off so we finally got to see her left knee again and hold her close. It was lovely.
The X-Ray showed that the hip is developing well. So we now move to having a brace instead. We had thought that she'd only have to wear the brace at naps and nighttime but we had that information wrong. So we were very disappointed to learn it has to stay on 23 hours a day. However it is much easier than the cast to care for and she can now take proper baths. Apart from some dry skin she has survived the cast very well.

Emily gets some tummy time in her cast

Emily gets breakfast at home before the cast comes off.

The cast comes off

  
Move those legs

The new brace keeps her legs out. She can move both knees now and we can take her out of the brace to change and clean her. It's a lot less bulky than the cast and she can fit into the car seat without padding. We have three months of the brace twenty three hours a day and we'll see how she's doing after that.

We're disappointed that Emily isn't able to stay out of the brace for longer but this is better than the cast.