Change of Plans -Serial Casting instead of Botox 2/08

As many of you know today was the day Evan was scheduled
to get Botox in his left let/foot at Shriners. We were a little nervous about this due to the news story that came out on Friday. We decided to go in to the Dr. and ask him about it and go from there. We knew that we would most likely go ahead with the Botox because the benefit of Evan walking on his left foot flat is great, not doing so will likely cause long term affects in his hips and back. So we talked to the Dr. and he felt that it was ok to go ahead with the Botox and that the children who passed had received Botox but it was not certain that it was the cause of death but could have aggrivated an already ill child.
After the Dr. examined Evan he explained that Evan had a contracture which in our case means that he was not able to straighten Evan's leg and get his foot into neutral. (think 90 degree angle)The Dr. mentioned that there was a study done on children with contractures and using botox, serial casting or a combination of the two. The study showed that the serial casting alone brought a longer lasting and better affect than Botox alone or Botox combined with serial casting. So we decided to go ahead with the recommendation of the Dr. and do just the serial casting with the option of Botox at a later date if we were not getting desired results with the casting alone.