Operation Happy Feet, Stage 1

Back in Guangzhou, when Nathanael underwent his "exit physical," one of the Chinese pediatricians asked us earnestly, "You do plan to address the problem of his feet?" Our answer was a heartfelt Yes. Of course, we will address that issue.

Jennifer had been researching the treatment of clubfeet and come to the conclusion that we would travel to Iowa City to the U of Iowa to visit Dr. Ignacio Ponseti, a pioneer in non-surgical clubfoot correction through casts. Dr. Ponseti is currently 93 years old and still sees 30 patients a week! Amazing.

On Nov. 2, the whole family jumped in the minivan (at 5:30am) and drove to our first meeting with Dr. Ponseti. By about 1pm that same day, Nathanael was in his first set of casts. We were told 4-6 casts and he'd be done.

Little did Dr. Ponseti know, however, how severely N's scar tissue from his surgery in China would affect his treatment. By mid-December it was obvious that 4-6 castings would not correct the position of his feet. It was also becoming obvious that one week between castings was not enough to continue to turn his feet. So we would have increased castings with increased time intervals between them.

Here are some of the pics from the casting period.