Brisvegas for orthotics

We got back a few days ago from Brisbane its quite a drive from Armidale and with 2 toddlers and a teenager (squeezed into the backseat) I was prepared for it to be hellish ...but it turned out to be a great drive, we did it in 6 hours (a new record for us).

We went up to Brisbane to see a pediatric podiatrist because Cyrus has trouble with running, (he falls over when he gets speed up), he can't jump or balance on one leg. The background is that all Cys gross motor milestones have been delayed (walked at 19.5 months) and he didn't start to stringing words together until he was 33 months old but within 4 months had completely caught up to his peers, he has been alot of work this kid, lots of worry, but I should add he is so delightful and full of imagination, good humour and caring. I have been taking him to a Bowen Therapist for a couple of years now and at our last visit she thought there was something bony rather than muscular wrong with Cy which has led us to see this podiatrist in Brisvegas hoping she may have some solutions.

Before seeing the Podiatrist Cy had to have full leg xrays - this is the lead apron I had to wear, Cy said it was too heavy.

She was amazing and worked out very quickly what was wrong and how to improve things.

She explained that messages from the feet or more specifically the bones in the feet communicate to the brain where you are on the ground and the brain tells the body which muscles to use to keep balanced or move forward and if the bones of the feet are not in the right position then the information is a bit garbled and the brain engages the wrong muscles to keep balanced or move, for Cy this means he uses his hamstrings to walk ( just try it - its really hard work, and this means he has to lock his abs (his abs are rock hard), he also has kept the baby reflexes of curling over his toes if you tickle his feet - the proper reflex should be a pulling up and away motion.

I was so impressed with her that I hoped she could look at Owen too - as luck would have it someone had rung to cancel their appointment that day, and so the podiatrist saw Owen that afternoon. She said Owen is doing great, his feet are in much better organisation than Cy's, he has better tone than Cy (!!!) and he is just as hypermobile as Cy !! so there you go its not all the 47th Chromosome - its in the family genes. So Owen got a set of orthotics as well as Cy, but Cy also has night splints to wear, the splints will change those reflexes in his feet to normal (I know... I have trouble believing it too but she sayes it works).

With it being such a huge trip we decided to throw in some fun things in too after all we don't visit the big city very often.

The Museum -This dinosaur has the best name - Muttaburrasaurus, Cy sayes it "Nuttamurrasaurus"

It was sleeting at home, but in Brisbane we had warm sunshine the boys stripped off and paddled

These women from Vanuatu were doing a demo of traditional Water Drumming it sounded amazing and their voices a beautiful harmony, I love stumbling on things like this, that is what I love about going to the city.

Cy was facinated with this cement sheep out the front of a cafe

Cy loves trains he is Thomas mad, so we took a trip to the railway museum ...the things you do for your kids !

I think Owen felt a bit like I did about the Rail museum it was all a bit "ho hum"