Today is the day we finally get some answers: Ava’s feet

Today is the day when we finally get some answers. Since Ava started walking I noticed that her feet turn in a little. To start with I wasn’t too concerned as she was little and I just thought it would be something she would grow out of. As she got older more people started to comment about it and this is when I started to get a little more concerned.

As a child my feet turned slightly in also and my mom had to seek medical advice to help me . So I suppose it was bound to be passed on to at least one of my children.

At first I spoke to my doctor about my concerns to which he didn’t see any problem as he does with most things. This didn’t settle right with me so when I saw the nurse I asked her about it and she said that Ava was too young to do anything about it.To look at it again when she was older. At this point she was probably around 18 months old. Then due to her asthma I had to take her to our local walk in medical centre. The lady who was treating her for her asthma picked up on her feet. She asked if Ava was being seen by anyone for it. To which I told her I wasn’t but I had been trying. She was pretty shocked that I hadn’t been told to leave her. As she explained that with things like ligaments/tendons/muscles the sooner you start to do exercises with them the better the response to the treatment is.

I was half happy someone agreed with me and half annoyed that she could potentially get worse due to her doctor not thinking anything of it. She told me to by pass my doctor and go straight to my health visitor. So in August I took Ava to the health visitor and she agreed that something wasn’t quite right and that she needed to be referred. Fantastic were getting some where !! Or so I thought.

About 8 weeks had passed and I hadn’t heard anything so I called my health visitor. Who advised me that a referral had been made and to wait a little longer and we will be sent a date to attend. So I waited and still nothing so I called again. They still reckoned that a referral had been made so I asked for the number of the department the referral had been made to so I could ask them myself. I called them and within minutes I found out in fact they hadn’t received Ava’s referral !!! RIGHT ! I was pissed to say the least. Not only had she not been placed on a waiting list. Her details are floating around in the postal system .As they are still in the stone age and the health visitors apparently sent Ava’s referral via post and the physio people never received it. What I cannot understand is why don’t they check that things are received or just come into the 21st century and either do recorded delivery or an encrypted email.

After me giving them a lot of grief on the phone they said they had submitted the referral again and will make sure that the correct people get it. To be honest I wasn’t betting on it  and was ready for another argument in a few weeks time. But to my surprise less than two weeks after my phone call a letter arrived with a date on . If only this had happened first time around we may have been done and got an answer by now.

Anyway the appointment was today and it didn’t start the best. We went to the reception and showed the lady our letter and she told us to go and sit down. So we sat down Ava played with the toys. Half an hour passed and we still hadn’t been seen. So I went back to the receptionist to see what was going on. She called a few people then came back to me and said are you sure your appointment is here. I showed her the letter and yes we were at the right place. She called for a colleague to come and talk to us about what was going on. well basically some annoying person had put the wrong medical centre on our letter. So the lady we were meant to be seeing was at a different medical centre waiting for us !!

Thankfully the lady said she would drive over to us as it was their mistake. Which is fine but at this point we had nearly been waiting an hour and Ava was getting restless. She hadn’t any lunch as it clashed with her appointment time and she hadn’t had a nap either. So she was starting to get ratty shall we say and I don’t blame her. I was getting all hot and bothered and stressed too.

The lady finally arrived and called us straight into a room where she asked us to take Ava’s shoes, socks and leggings off so she could see how she was walking. She also sang the wheels on the bus but instead of using her arms to make the movements she used her legs to go round and round. The lady said straight away said she could see their was something not quite right. But after around 15 minutes she said that the issue wasn’t with Ava’s feet is was in fact her tibia. Basically her tibia bone is twisted causing her feet to turn in. Even though her knee caps are facing forward. Thankfully thought she said that this should correct it self by the age of 4-5 years. She shouldn’t need splints or specialist shoes ! she also said thankfully the shoes we have got for Ava are perfect for her which was a weight of my mind ! She has asked to see her in 4 months time just as a follow-up appointment but hopefully that will be it. She will grow out of it.

I’m so glad that we got her seen to and its so nice to have an answer and not to just be fobbed off. Its nothing that is serious and hopefully in time it will correct itself.