Introducing our focus for August: Raymond!

Raymond

Here's Raymond. He just had a birthday a few weeks ago and is now five years old. 

The only picture we have of little Raymond is a blurry one. Here's what I can tell you having been in the AMC community and seeing the different body types: his wrists look good. A large percentage of AMC kiddos have wrists that are clubbed. They look hooked like this:

Note the bent wrists.

The baby in this picture is my daughter. She could touch her fingers to her forearms. It made holding things very hard for her. It took serial casting and daily stretching and nightly splinting for those wrists to come to neutral (straight). Raymond won't need any of this. His wrists look good. Notice also that the infant's shoulders are inverted. You can tell that the palms of her hands face away from her body. Go ahead and do that with your own arms and see how your shoulders feel. That takes a supination stretch to undo, or a supination splint (a giant wrap-around thing) to train the arms to work in a way they can be used. Raymond will not need any of that either as far as I can see. That's wonderful! 

So what will he need? What I'm seeing for Raymond is clubfeet which will require Ponseti serial casting.  

And I'm also going to guess his knees are stuck in that bend. That may require casting or surgery. I know about knee surgery from what my daughter went through. Here's the link to her knee results after surgery or you can see this graph:

What I'm saying is that Raymond's AMC is HIGHLY treatable. He is getting zero treatment for it now, but he could really shine in a new family. I see walking in his future. But not where he is now.

Raymond is our focus this month. We'll not just focus on his AMC or how treatable it is, but we'll also try to really see Raymond through this blurry picture and get to know the little boy there. I have a soft spot for Raymond. You see he was born the same year as my daughter, and right now my daughter is running around with walking sticks and playing and laughing while Raymond is trapped in a crib. He is destined for life in a tiny prison. That does not make sense to this mama's brain. Please consider donating towards his grant fund by clicking here. Or please consider sharing his picture on Facebook. He needs people to really see him, through his situation, through his terrible picture--see the little boy who wants a mommy and has SO MUCH potential. He needs someone to make up for five missed birthday parties. He needs cute little glasses to make all the ladies swoon. He needs straight little feet that a couple months of casting can provide. He needs a chance. He needs a mom. And we need to stand in the gap between a life in a crib and finding his family. We need to share and donate and scream and holler and yell and panic over his fate.

We are needed!