Our Story
    Jakob arrived on February 9, 1998 at 9:51 PM after a very uneventful pregnancy.  He weighed in at 6 pounds 15 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long.  Since I had found out he was a boy from the ultrasound I had in late September, I made sure all the right "equipment" was there.  I can also remember counting his fingers and toes.  There was one thing I missed at that pont. . . Jakob was born with severe bilateral clubfeet.

    I found out about Jakob's feet when I went to the nursery at 2:30 AM to hold him.  My husband, Paul, was sleeping in my room, so I had decided to go to the nursery.  I can vividly remember the nurse asking me if I had seen his feet.  When I said that I hadn't, she unwrapped the blanket and showed me his twisted feet.  One of the first thoughts that came into my mind was, "how is he ever going to walk with his feet like this?"  I know the nurse told me not to worry about things, but how could I not worry.  I don't remember too much else she said right then, but I do recall a few words - casts, brace, and fully correctable are a few that come to mind.  One thing I don't remember anyone saying was that Jakob would need surgery.

    By 7:00 Tuesday evening, the on-call orthopedist had come in and put Jakob's first set of casts on.  It was a very rough evening for Jakob as well as Paul and I.  The on-call orthopedist came into the nursery and proceeded to maipulate Jakob's feet to see how close to a normal position he could get them into before applying the casts.  He didn't really say much to us during the time he was looking at Jakob.  He didn't introduce himself, congratulate us on our son, or anything.  In fact, we didn't even know his name until about 6:30 the next morning.  It was by far one of the most unpleasant things I had witnessed.

    On Wednesday morning, we were told that during the night, the casts had rubbed small sores behind Jakob's knees and that the orthopedist would be in to talk with us.  This meeting did not provide us with many more answers than the night before.  He trimmed the casts so they wouldn't rub the sore places and set up an appointment for us to come to the office the following Monday.

    By Friday, the sores on the back of Jakob's legs had been irritated by the constant moving of his legs.  We got in to see one of the assistants at the orthopedist's office who wrapped some cotton around Jakob's legs from the top of the casts to the middle of his thighs.  This would keep Jakob from being able to bend his knees and give the sores a chance to heal before he would have to get the next set of casts.

    We went in for our scheduled appointment determined that this would be the last time we would see this orthopedist.  We didn't like his bedside manner (he didn't seem to have any to us) and we knew there had to be someone better out there somewhere.  We got a big surprise when he told us that he was going to refer us to the Orthopedic Department at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clincs (UIHC) where they saw Clubfeet everyday.  He left Jakob out of the casts since he thought it would be a waste of time to put casts on him that afternoon for them to be removed again in 2 days.  We did have to make sure to stretch his feet several times a day to keep them stretched. 

    Wednesday afternoon, we had our first appointment with Dr. Stuart Weinstein at UIHC.  This was a completely different experience.  Dr. Weinstein took the time to answer all our questions as they came up.  He also put on a different type of cast.  The first casts Jakob had only went up to his knees; the new ones went from his toes all the way up to his groin.  The casts would be changed once a week. 

    Jakob had a total of 6 sets of casts put on by Dr. Weinstein.  Before the last set of casts were applied, Dr. Weinstein performed a percutaneous heel cord tenotomy in which the Achilles tendon is nicked to let the heel bones drop into the correct place in the foot.  He wore that lasy set of casts for about 2 1/2 weeks.

    The last set of casts came off on April 6, 1998, when Jakob was 8 weeks old.  At that time he was fitted for a Denis Browne Bar  - a derotational bar with straight last shoes attached to it that helps to hold the correction.  For the first couple of months, Jakob wore his brace (as we call it) all the time - except bathtime.  At this point, we were told that we could decrease the amount of time Jakob wore his brace a little at a time until he only wore it during naps and bedtime.  It was a fairly slow process of 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening for the first week.  The second week, we could take it off for 2 hours at a time.  It went like this for about 5 weeks until Jakob only wore the brace about 14 hours a day.

    Jakob is now to a point that he only wears the brace at bedtime.  We are very pleased with the prgoress he has made.  He is the typical 2 year old - running, playing and getting into everything.  Considering what his feet looked like when he was born, I consider it all a miracle.
    

Last updated on: May 17, 2000