Worry

Waiting and the unknown are two things that drive me into an anxiety attack. These are also two things we deal with every single day, so I'm a bit tense from time to time.

I know a lot of you guys have been keeping up with us and our process of trying to help fix Ella's torticollis.

As some of you know, we've been going to physical therapy since the end of December in hopes to correct the torticollis before the age of 1. Doctors often say that torticollis can not be fixed with physical therapy once the child has reached the age of 1. After 12 months, surgery is usually recommended.

Ella has also been in a helmet since the beginning of February in hopes to correct damage already caused by the torticollis (such as asymmetry of the face and head and ear shifting). We've made great progress with the helmet and are, at this point, waiting for Ella's ears to shift back to a normal position. The tubes in her ears are at weird angles which can cause ear infections and long-term hearing problems. The kicker is ear shift can't be fixed until the torticollis is fixed first.

We took Ella to get x-rays to see how her bones are growing. The pulling of muscles can cause Scoliosis as wells as other problems. The x-ray images weren’t great so Ella is now going to have an MRI with sedation in less than a week. There is a 10% chance Ella doesn’t have torticollis and in fact has neck bones fused together which would mean much worse problems. The doctor wouldn’t even discuss what that would entail because her percentage is low and it’s not a great situation to be in. No need to worry just yet.

As of right now, the Dr. is predicting that we will find Ella does indeed have have torticollis, she will go through physical therapy through January (because he believes it could help for the most part to continue) and that point, if the torticollis has not been corrected, she will have surgery. He’s already recommended a surgeon and asked us to visit with him after we receive the MRI results if it is torticollis. He seems pretty confident she will need surgery. Our physical therapist believes that her problem in the next, for the most part, is improving a lot and may not be the cause of her issues anymore. She believes the problem now lies in her back muscles since she keeps her shoulders shrugged all the time. Surgery can't fix that, but a collar and botox treatments might.

As you can imagine, watching my child be sedated and becoming a limp, helpless baby will probably send me into an uncontrollable sob. Just thinking of her one day getting to participate in singing Vacation Bible School songs in front of the church makes me teary-eyed. Wednesday will be hard. I will pray for strength, but will probably find myself struggling to find it. Ella has made me quite the sap these days. I'm also a worry-wort and tend to fret about the "what ifs."

Being a parent is hard. There are responsibilities that make each day a challenge. You have to find energy from down in your gut just to keep up. Sleep becomes a luxury and eating becomes an after thought. These are all things I am happy to do. The hardest part of being a parent is the worry. You love this child so much that it hurts and to have your child suffer is almost unbearable. I pray Ella's condition is fixable. I pray it will be with as little pain as possible and that she won't remember any of this. We are tired, worried, but most of all we are hopeful. Pray for Ella.