If you have visited here before, you can probably see that I have changed the name of the blog again. I started blogging at 4URuthie to tell the story of our journey to adopt our 1st daughter. I changed it to Mountains for Maggie when we were praying for God to move mountains on behalf of our 2nd daughter. Well now it is no longer just Ruthie’s or Maggie’s stories. It is now our family's story, and the stories of those we share life with, as we Conquer Mountains together. Both ConqueringMountains.net and 4URuthie.blogspot will lead here.

About Me

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I am a pastor's wife, mother of 4 kids (2 adopted and 3 with special needs), physical therapist, and photography junky. This is where it all comes together for me. Feel free to join along as I process life out loud.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Post Op Princess Report

Some of my AMC friends who are contemplating Ruthie's most recent procedure have been asking me to post on her progress since surgery and I feel bad that I am just now getting around to it.  So here is The Good, The Bad, and The Hopeful for the Disney princess who refused to pose pretty in her costume this week and so we had to go for the action shots.


In late December Ruthie had an elbow triceps tendon transfer to make a bicep in her right arm.  She spent 5 weeks in a cast and 5 weeks in a splint.

The Good- She has beautiful active anti-gravity elbow flexion in her right arm.  She no longer has to use her other arm to assist her with bringing things to her mouth and she no longer has to bend back to use gravity to assist her.


The Bad- It appears either the surgery or the splint impaired her ulnar nerve and she is now having some difficulty with her right grip strength.  She also has some pretty big scars from the procedure. She also cannot yet full straighten her elbow.  Her surgeon does not see this as a big deal but I am a little more concerned about it.



The Hopeful- Her grip strength is improving and she is slowly gaining the range of motion in her hand back.  As she grows her scars will appear smaller and I haven't given up on her elbow range.  I will keep you posted.


My Disney Princess.

2 comments:

Lori said...

Thank you for posting her progress! I've been wondering how she has been doing-I hope she continues to gain more strength and flexibiility over time!

Tracey S. said...

I'm THRILLED to hear she gained active elbow flexion! I hope she continues to gain ROM back and strength. I have the elbow contracture as a result of my transfer but my parents knew that going in because of the muscle transferred (I doubt the triceps transfer would have worked for me, since I'm more affected then Ruthie) so keep stretching and hopefully Ruthies elbow can be fully straightened because she had a different transfer! I'd LOVE to see video of the active elbow flexion!

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