Trying to get over the river after having been through the woods......

Friday was Anju's annual visit to the spina bifida clinic in Fargo.  It happened to be during a very emotionally and physically exhausting week for me, so I wasn't really looking forward to a day full of examinations by different specialists and keeping Anju cheery through it all.

We got a call the day before that they needed to bump someone back to 9 a.m. instead of 8 a.m., and they figured since Anju lived the furthest away, she was a good candidate for late arrival.  So, we took off around 6:15 a.m. instead of 5:15 as we had planned.  Still quite early enough.  I pulled into Moorhead (Fargo's sister city on the MN side) around 8:45 and figured I'd get there with about 5 minutes to spare.  We had only stopped once for 5 minutes along the way to get some coffee and juice, but many miles of 55 mph speed limit and following things like school buses and cops had taken their toll on our progress.

I followed my Mapquest directions as we entered the Moorhead/Fargo border, as I only drive downtown there once a year for this clinic (except for a couple trips to be fingerprinted by Homeland Security when we were working on getting Anju home) and there are a lot of one-way streets to keep in mind.  I had 3 routes suggested by Mapquest on my piece of paper.  I soon discovered all 3 were blocked by large "Road Closed" signs due to flooding of the Red River.  It took me 10 minutes or so on the one-ways to get myself oriented back to the main road to go over the only open bridge to get to Fargo.  And, of course, the clinic had moved since our last visit.  We arrived in the building 10 minutes late only to be directed to another part of the building.  We got into the elevator to get to the 1st floor, which I had figured I was already on.  But no, the entry floor is the Lobby level.  First floor is up a floor.  OK.

Anju saw a pediatrician, an orthopedist, an occupational therapist, a social worker (everybody has to), a urologist, and had an ultrasound of her kidneys and bladder.  Then, we were directed to drive across town to another clinic to see an opthamologist.


Anju was a star patient all day.  Another way to say that: she got a lot of stickers----even a couple decks of princess card games.  She leisurely snacked on bunny crackers and pb/j sandwiches between specialists and did whatever they wanted.  EXCEPT give a urine sample.  In the 3 years she has been there, they have yet to get one from her.  This year, she said peeing in a cup was "grot" and she refused.  We tried 3 times, though.  And, of course as soon as we left the clinic, she had to go in a nearby thrift store where I had to park near scary homeless people.  I have empathy like everyone else, but this one guy looked like a bum from the 1930's and I half expected him to have his possessions wrapped up in a bandanna on a stick over his shoulder in proper hobo style.


The orthopedist commented that her heel cord tightness has not gotten worse, due to our exercises at home, but the hamstring on the left side is also tight now, and she still cannot get her left heel down to the ground when she walks.  The usual course of action at this point, is to Botox her left ankle.  However, all the doctor's other LMC (lipomyelomeningocele) patients with a defect at the L4/L5 level like Anju have ankles and feet that are basically flacid and devoid of any feeling at all.  If she were to treat the foot, Anju would need a calf-height brace instead of a shoe insert, because she would be unable to use the muscles of her foot.  They measured her legs, and they are not uneven.  One hip is slightly anterior to the other, but that is to be expected with someone with a spinal defect, and probably isn't causing any major trouble.   So, she's better off having a limp and keeping the use of her foot.  They consider her reduced sensation in her feet and her tight cords to be such a minor effect of her LMC and were so excited to see how well she was doing.  They could tell she'd been playing soccer, as the therapist rolled the ball to Anju who proceeded to kick it with such force that it hit the orthopedist in the crotch!  How embarassing!  Anju laughed and laughed.

Shawn took her to the medical accessories branch in Bemidji yesterday to be fitted for her new orthotics.  I think they are only going to be flat inserts this time and not ones that wrap around her whole foot like her current ones.  We'll see!


Today I got the results of her ultrasound, which was again normal.  Another oddity.  She is the only patient they have who has not had even one UTI.  She has been truly blessed!