“It’s like I have boulders in my legs.”

The doctor came into the room, and said she had to call the surgeon to ask what we should do if she saw little to no healing in his bones. She opened up her laptop to show us the x-rays of his hips and started talking about the lack of healing between the bones. This was not the news we wanted…

It was quite a shock to us, especially since we hadn’t taken any x-rays yet!

For some reason, nobody sent us to get any x-rays taken before we saw the doctor, and since she assumed we had taken x-rays she just pulled up the most recent ones in his file. Those x-rays, though, we’re from our last visit three weeks ago. Upon hearing that we hadn’t taken any x-rays yet, she immediately took us over to get them taken, and then we met back up with her a few minutes later. At that point she was very happy with the progress he had made. She said one hip is mostly healed, and the other is showing very good progress. This isn’t the best view for you to be able to see, but this is one of the x-rays they took today and you can see the plates really well as well as the angle that the hips fit into the socket.

Also, just to throw this in, here’s an updated picture of one of his incisions, all of the tape is gone from both incisions, so they both look very similar.

This was great news from the doctor. She said that he no longer needed to use the wedge at all, could cross his legs, and could start his physical therapy. Basically, he could pretty much do anything except jump.

We celebrated right after with some cheese fries and Cheetos from the hospital cafeteria!

A little later at home, Julia’s sister Jennifer brought Abigail home to us. Elijah wanted to try walking for the first time while she was there, so we got him ready to stand from his wheelchair and stood him up. No walking happened, but he got to feel what it was like to stand for the first time. He said it was much like having boulders in his legs, and that his feet were stuck to the ground like glue. He lasted about 10 seconds and then was ready to sit back down.

Tonight we decided to have a bit of a celebration because of the good news. We went out to dinner at Applebee’s, and then got some Coldstone ice cream after that!

When we got back home, Elijah wanted to try walking again. This time he actually did walk, or at least did something resembling walking with Julia’s help. He also tried to stand a couple of times on his own.

He actually goes in for his first physical therapy appointment tomorrow morning. And the doctor sent over an order for us to switch out his wheelchair with a smaller one which will be much easier for him to use at this point.

A lot of good news all around, and we are so excited to see him start moving again and to be able to start this next chapter in his recovery.

Thank you all for your prayers and your continued support. We know it’s all making a difference!