Brace Yourself

Frequently my mind goes back to the first few months we spent in hospital after Audrey was born. After each new diagnosis, I prayed, “Please let this be all for her.” Each time I prayed, I never got the answer that I wanted.

And I still don’t.

In addition to all her other issues, we recently learned that Audrey has a curvature of her spine, or two curvatures to be precise. This little girl doesn’t do anything halfway. The curvatures are bad enough that she has to wear a torso brace. If we are lucky, she will only have to wear it for about 10 years. It beats having to wear it for the rest of her life or have surgery, so I will take the ten years if we can get it. The only way I can deal with having a child with multiple disabilities is to take small victories when you can get them.

When I first saw the brace, my heart sank thinking that she would have to wear this thing twenty-one hours a day for at least ten years. It looks like the exoskeleton of a crustacean, but my little lobster wears it well. She can make anything look cute. I thought about how awful it would be to put on this hard plastic shell every day and go about your business like nothing was wrong, but that is exactly what Audrey did. When we first wedged her little body into this contraption, she just shrugged it off and started walking around like nothing happened. And she has acted that way every day since she started wearing it. She never complains or even acts like she notices that she is wearing it.

She has to wear a special shirt underneath the brace to keep her skin from chafing, so we bought a dozen little wife beaters to wear under the brace. Even a grey wife beater looks cute on her. Did I mention that she can make anything look cute? She hasn’t complained yet, but let’s see how she does during the summer when she has to wear a wife beater, a brace, and a t-shirt while she enjoys a nice, Texas summer which is similar to living for three months on the surface of the sun. I’m starting to sweat just thinking about it.

It felt like an engineering marvel to get this thing on her. They had to measure and cut, measure and trim, and repeat the process for half an hour to get the fit right. Then, they had to cut out a hole for the feeding tube so that we could access it without having to remove the brace.

I’m assuming (and hoping and praying) that the brace will work. Heck, knowing this little girl, if the brace doesn’t work she will just use her bionic powers to straighten the curvature herself. I’m not going to put anything past her. So, the worst part of her having to wear the brace is that I can’t tickle her ribs anymore during our tickle fights. A good rib tickle is the easiest way to bring about her belly laugh which will brighten even the darkest of moods. I live for those three hours a day when she doesn’t have to wear the brace so I can get in a day’s worth of rib tickles.

Despite my optimism, I’m asking again, “Please let this be all for her.”