Evi's Dolphin Foot

Hello and happy New Year!! Our family made it safely back to Dallas after two days of driving. And once again the Lord has provided housing for us while we are in Dallas. We want to thank all of you who have helped us to secure this new apartment. And speaking of our new housing, what an incredible place it is. Evi has her own room, and Caleb gets to sleep in the large walk in closet. Today Evi and I were walking around the 2 lakes that our apartment borders and spent a while watching the ducks and squirrels, and even got to feed the ducks. There are miles of walking trails that will be perfect as Evi learns to adapt to her new foot early next month.

On Thursday Evi took her 15th (and hopefully last) visit to the OR. This involved removing her cast, manually stretching her knee and then putting her in another cast. Praise the Lord that Evi is making progress and the doctor thinks that she will not need additional casts after this on is removed on January 16th. The doctor was able to stretch her knee to 5 degrees of deflection. This is almost perfect and she should be able to gain the last 5 degrees after getting her new foot. Also, for the first time in 4 months we no longer have to continue her daily bandage changes. The leg has healed to the point where there are no longer any open wounds. This is a major praise and we are so thankful to be making progress.

You are probably asking about the title of this e-mail “Evi’s Dolphin foot”. Over the last month Evi has talked a lot about her new foot. Her main concern was that her new foot would match her other foot. Leslie and I were unsure exactly what Evi meant by this. Someone let us borrow their prosthetic foot so that we could take it home to Evi. We came home and showed Evi a sample of what her foot will look like. She was very excited and wouldn’t stop thanking mommy and daddy for showing her this foot. She then proclaimed loudly. “Look at my dolphin foot!” Leslie and I were a little shocked and unsure what Evi was talking about. We figured out that several weeks earlier Leslie was trying to describe what Evi’s foot would be like by telling her that it was like a dolls foot. Evi didn’t quite understand and figured it was a dolphin foot. Well, maybe that was why she was so concerned about it matching. =)

Evi continues to make progress walking on her cast. Our prayer is that this will make it easier to adapt to her new foot once she gets the prosthetic. Please continue to pray as there are still lots of steps to be accomplished. While in Flagstaff we were blessed to be able to visit three of our supporting churches, and to spend some quality time with family and friends. Thank you once again for praying with us and standing beside us on this journey with Evi.