Our Family has Grown by One Foot!

As silly as the title is our family truly has grown by one foot! John had his second fitting on Monday which went really well! His parents were able to be with us so it was a very emotional experience! Seeing him walk for the first time, there are no words to describe that feeling! 

Monday was the final fitting before they made the prosthetic in carbon fiber. We finished up Monday and they said they would have the socket finished by Friday. The waiting was the hardest part!! But eventually Friday came around! We were very excited to go back in and pick up John's final leg! 

The Foot and leg system that John is using is the Proflex by Össur. It is an incredible foot that isn't even out on the market yet. We were also told that we are lucky to be workman comp because you aren't eligible for this particular foot unless you are a veteran or workman comp. 

The wearing schedule for the new leg is very strict because they don't want John getting any blisters or sores. This is very common with a new amputee who isn't used to wearing their prosthetic yet. The schedules is as follows: 

Day one- 1 hour in the morning & 1 hour in the afternoon 

Day two- 2 hours in the morning & 2 hours in the afternoon

Day three- 3 hours in the morning & 3 hours in the afternoon

Day four- 4 hours in the morning & 4 hours in the afternoon

Then you continue on with the 4 hour schedule until your next appointment. Our next appointment is on February 12th. 

John has been such a trooper using his new leg! Yesterday we went shooting with Joel, Amy, Caleb, and Paul. John did exceptionally well on his shooting if I do say so myself.  It was a blast getting to spend time with his family! 

Also something I would like to mention. John's work is putting on a benefit for him. Its going to be held at Casey's Bowling Alley in La Porte. It will be on February 20th the cost is 20 dollars a person. I don't have the times yet but I will update everyone with that information when I have it. We would be very pleased if people came to the benefit. Honestly this would be a wonderful time to see people we haven't had a chance to visit or otherwise wouldn't get the chance. This would also be a great opportunity to see John in action! 

Once again Thank You all for your continued support and prayers! They mean the absolute world to John and I and we wouldn't be here without them!

A Work in Progress

This week has been very eventful! We had an appointment with our prosthetist to get fitted for the first prosthetic limb.

 The fitting process is very interesting. First you put on the liner and then they put stickers on the liner which are used for the scanning process. They then scan the leg and it transfers into the computer. They then make the plastic trial socket. 

John tried on the trial socket and did some weight bearing  on the limb. It was a very exciting process! He did really well on putting most of his weight on his residual limb. They had to make several adjustments to the socket and we have another appointment coming up on Monday for the next fitting.

We are very excited about this next step in the process and being one step closer to the final product! Thank you so much for all your support and prayers! We have been so blessed to be able to share this whole process with you all and we can't wait to learn more with you! 

Back To Work

It has been a little while since our last update. This is mostly because it has been a waiting game. John will be heading back to work tomorrow. His company has a desk job waiting for him and he is so ready to get back to work! We had an appointment on Monday with the orthopedic surgeon to check on the limb and see how it is healing and shrinking. He seemed to be very pleased with Johns progress. 

Even though it has reduced, John is still having phantom pain so they have changed his medicine they have also prescribed him a TENS unit. This device essentially uses electrical pulse stimulation to (hopefully) help with the undesired sensation. 

John has an appointment this Thursday the 14th with the prosthetist. They will be starting the process of fitting him with his prosthesis. We are both very eager for this appointment! I will be doing another blog later this week with all the information we receive after that appointment. 

In other news, we were able to go this week and do some shooting at the range with John's family! His Christmas gift this year was a shotgun so obviously we had to go try it out! We have decided this needs to become a very regular thing for us because we enjoyed it so much!! 

As always we love you all and deeply appreciate that you allow us to share our life.

Thanks to all for prayers and God Bless you!