John in Orthotics – the most important person in my 3 year old’s life
Today we paid a visit to see John from the orthotics department in my local hospital. The 3 year old needs new inserts in her shoes. Her old ones designed, hand-molded and hand-made by John last September are getting too small. She really enjoys her visits to see John and makes the constant monotonous trips to hospital more bearable.
For those who are not aware, my 3 year has Cerebral Palsy and can’t walk unaided, I’ve talked about it in detail on this post. Apart from my 3 year old not being able to walk because of Cerebral Palsy she suffers from problems with her feet pronating which exacerbates her condition. As she grows it is important for her posture not to suffer from the way the bones in her feet set and equally important is for her feet to be corrected now to help her with a more normal looking walk when she is older.
John’s part on whether the 3 year will walk well one day.
The quality of her walking in the future will all depend on what happens now. What happens now can also make a difference to whether she will have to undergo operations in the future. For all of these reasons John is the most important person in her life after her family.
John is a highly skilled person who’s skill is a dying breed now. Hospitals are outsourcing everything they can to the cheapest bidder including this part of orthotics. The idea is to have a low skilled person take the mold of the patient in the hospital and then for the insert or AFO or any other type of support produced to be made by private companies. It sounds good in theory but doesn’t work in practice. The last mold for the 3 year old made this way came back completely wrong, with a wide gap between the side of her feet and the mold. She might as well not have any. The mold is meant to be a tight snug fit to keep her feet in place manoeuvring them into the position they should be growing.
John’s Skill
Where John’s skill comes into place is after the mold is made and before it sets he slightly changes its position into a new position, one which the feet should be growing, this part is down to experience and skill. John did all of this before with the previous mold but by the time they arrived at the outsourced company the person at the other end couldn’t get the inserts molded correctly. This is because these inserts for my 3 year old are specially designed for her feet with her pronation problem and also adjusting for her flat feet as well. These inserts are not your usual off the shelf types which the outsourced companies are use to doing. When John spoke to the private company on the phone explaining why they were wrong they couldn’t do what John wanted.
John’s Design
John designed how these inserts were to wrap her feet and how far up her ankles they would go to allow as much movement as possible for her. Previously when she was under the care of a different and inexperienced physio therapist than she is now she was given AFO supports which for her were the worst things you could possibly make her wear. It stopped her from wanting to try and walk completely.
My 3 year old has very good movement in her feet in comparison to other Cerebral Palsy children and doesn’t suffer like some do with only walking on tip-toes, she can put her whole foot in contact with the ground. The AFO was over-kill for her, changing the position of her hips to the point it made her so uncomfortable to walk she didn’t want to. I had more than one serious argument with the then physio therapist about it and eventually we made such a fuss that we were given the therapist we have now.
The physio therapist my 3 year now has is experienced enough and doesn’t feel professionally challenged that he allowed John to work his magic and produce a very unique mold for her. When the 3 year old put on these special molds for the first time she walked so well, like never before, Bikerboy and I had tears in our eyes watching her smile and walk holding my hand.
John Going Out of His Way
After the disaster of the first molds being outsource and coming back incorrect, John took it upon himself to make them from his shed in his garden. You just want your kid to be treated by someone like him don’t you? Having been in and out of hospitals for the last 12 years since the middle child had seizures at 2 weeks old, my life has been nothing but hospitals and having attended 5 different hospitals I can say you rarely see this type of consideration from hospital staff. You encounter nursers and doctors who care more than the average and you’re so grateful for the dedication they pay your child, but it’s a rare thing to have someone go beyond their remit to do this.
In the photos below John is looking at the old mold he made and seeing what adjustments he needs to make for the new one. Then he wraps her feet in clingfilm to make less of a mess to her feet.
John wets the molding material and wraps it around her feet, layering it until her feet are sufficiently covered.
He then holds the molding material in place for a few seconds until it starts to set a little to enable him to remove them.
The mold takes on every indentation of her food. He now starts his magic.
Before the molds set he needs to tweak it here and there and this is where his experience and skills comes into place.
We don’t want to have inserts of her feet as they are now, the idea is to adjust these molds into the position we are trying to make her feet change as they grow.
We now wait for John to make the inserts out of these molds.