Allie will wear these braces for the next four months. These are called HKAFO's; that is Hip-Knee-Ankle-Foot-Orthosis. We thought maneuvering her in a cast was tough. That was a cake-walk compared to our new setup. Allie weighs much more in this contraption than she did in the cast (she probably weighs more than you did before your last diet). And she still has to wear this thing 24/7.
I have to tell you: we were not expecting this. We were told that Allie would wear braces, but from the knee down. We lost it when we saw Jeff The Braces Guy bring this monstrosity out.
I usually try to be upbeat in these posts, but I am not at all upbeat about this. This is depressing. Enough already.
The good news is we are able to take Allie out of her braces to give her a bath 
and today I plan on taking her up to the pool for a dip. That should be fun. She can also come out of it at physical therapy when Dancer Joan works her magic on her.
But she has to sleep in this set up and that's hard. She's more comfortable in this than the cast, but she has to constantly be adjusted through the night because she can't roll herself over. So we constantly give her the old heave-ho all night to keep her from cramping up and getting sore. Don't worry; we've gotten use to not sleeping through the night over the past two years.
Allie is doing much better through all this than we are. One thing the medical professionals have continually said is that children are amazingly resilient. It's the parents that panic and freak out most. But these braces conjure up childhood memories of the Dark Side of the Force. I'm pretty convinced that these braces are manufactured by the same evil corporation that assembles uniforms for Darth Vader's Storm Troopers, protectors of the Death Star.
