Kellysstory

Kelly Nicole was born at 12:20 am on Thursday, March 16, 2000 at Marquette General Hospital in Marquette, Michigan. She was a beautiful 7 lb 15 oz baby with a full head of black hair, and a left foot that was turned in. We do not have a history of clubfoot in our family, and initially, we were told that her foot was turned in because of the way she was sitting in the womb, and that it would straighten itself out.

Later that day, our family doctor called for a pediatrician to check Kelly's foot, and then the pediatrician called for an orthopaedic surgeon. The ortho told us that Kelly had clubfoot (the first time we'd ever heard of it) and that her foot would need to be casted for correction. He expected that six to eight weeks of casting and then night splints would fix her foot. Early on Friday morning, at the tender age of one day old, Kelly received her first full leg cast. After five more casts (weekly casting changes), Kelly was fitted for an AFO. After the casting process, her heel was looking "corrected", but her toes were still pointing downward and slightly inward. She wore an AFO for the next eight weeks. At this visit, the ortho was not happy with the progress of Kelly's foot ("rocker bottom" was mentioned), and sent us to a pediatric orthopaedic specialist located in the lower peninsula of Michigan.

Update: January 2001

Kelly went for her 5 month check up on January 22. Her foot is still looking great, and she's progressing well with her developmental milestones. We discovered at this appointment that Kelly's joints are very flexible (double-jointed). This is very rare for a child with clubfoot. Doctor Ponseti said that he estimated 1 in 500 to 1 in 800 cases have this flexibility. Since her foot isn't as stiff and rigid as most clubfoot cases, she will probably be able to discontinue use of the brace one to two months after she learns to walk. Dr. Ponseti also mentioned that Dr. Turco (another pioneer in the treatment of clubfoot) had found in his research late in his career that surgical releases on children with this extra flexibility can be "devastating". Unfortunately, flexibility in the joints can't be diagnosed until the child is 8-10 months old, at which point, most surgeries have already been administered. We are so thankful that we did not choose a surgical release for Kelly's clubfoot, for it could have turned out very badly, and no one would have been able to predict it.

We traveled to Iowa three more times. On the final trip, Kelly had her heel cord tenotomy (August 7th). Her final cast came off on August 25th. She wore the DBB (Dennis Browne Bar) full time for three months. She will continue to wear the brace at night for a few years to deter regression. Our family is forever grateful to Doctor Ponseti, and we are thankful that God gave him the talent to take care of so many babies and their families. Kelly will never remember her ordeal, but her parents always will. We're determined to tell as many others as we can about Doctor Ponseti's method of correcting clubfoot so hopefully other families can explore all their options for non-surgical treatment of clubfoot before having to use a surgical release.

So on Thursday, July 15th, I called the number that Martin gave me, and I was completely shocked when the secretary put me directly through to Dr. Ponseti. Dr. Ponseti listened to my story, which I'm sure he's heard so many times before, and asked me if we could bring Kelly to Iowa City on Monday. Well, we were flabbergasted, to say the least. I was fully expecting to have to wait weeks to see Dr. Ponseti! I requested vacation from work, and packed up for the long trip to Iowa. On Monday, July 17th, Kelly met Dr. Ponseti for the first time and he set her in her first cast. I was very impressed with how Dr. Ponseti showed me the skeleton model of the foot and explained to me how Kelly's bones were currently positioned and how he would be gradually moving them. He is the nicest doctor that I have ever met, asking me about my profession and my husband's and showing an acute interest in our family. When I watched him interact with Kelly, all my anxieties about her condition went away, and I knew that I had finally come to the right place and this man was going to fix my little girl's foot.

This new doctor told us that Kelly would need a surgical release (possibly with pins to set the bones), and scheduled us for surgery on August 28th when Kelly would be 5 months old. He said that she would be in casts for six to ten weeks after the surgery. In the meantime, he told us we would have to put her back into casts to keep her foot stretched and just wait until she was old enough for the surgery. We were horrified at the thought of 19 more weeks of casts on our very active daughter. During the drive home, I was determined that there had to be another option for Kelly. I started my internet search, and found numerous testimonials about Dr. Ponseti and the "Ponseti Method". Martin Egbert (Joshua's dad) was the most influential person that I "met" on-line and in one email posting, he gave me Dr. Ponseti's email address and phone number and told me to contact him directly.

Update: March 2001

Kelly is officially walking. We were concerned about how she would stand on the inside of her ankle (rolling it inward) because of the overcorrection of her foot, so we talked to Dr. Ponseti about it again. As of the week of February 19th, she is no longer wearing the foot abduction brace. We expect that her tendons will pull the foot back in within a matter of weeks. Kelly celebrates her first birthday on the sixteenth.

Update: October 2003

Kelly is now over 3.5 years old! She is doing great. She rides her bike, jumps, runs, climbs, goes to gymnastics and dance class and is a very normal 3 year old. She has about a 1 or 1.5 shoe size difference in her feet, and a slight calf size difference, but overall, her feet and legs look absolutely normal. We are forever grateful to Dr. Ponseti!