Wrinkles!

At 32 who'd a thunk wrinkles would be a cause for celebration ?!?

They are, but probably because they aren't on me!

J has wrinkles on the sides of her feet! Additionally, she has a toe, 2nd from the end on the right foot, if you care, that has a crease at the joint for the first time in her ~entire~ life!

We've been experimenting with different kinds of foam and, lately, chip bags on the tops of J's feet. Since her LE developed in-utero she was born with stage 2 fibrosis on the tops of both feet. Even when we've gotten some reduction in size in the past, it's always felt like there was a hard, knotty plate between the fluid under the skin and the bones of her foot. Well, it's still hard, but not nearly as much so. We were actually able to 'pinch' the skin on the dorsum for the first time today. I'm so excited.

It's neat, too. Now that J is older she is starting to understand a little more. She looks at her feet with us when we measure her progress (ok, only sometimes, but hey, she's four!) and gets excited/happy when we talk about the reduced height of the dorsum on her right foot (WOOT! on that one!!!) or, as she says, "It's getting flatter Mom! I have a flat foot!".

So... Chip bags rock!!!! We've seen more progress with the fibrosis on the tops of her feet in ONE WEEK using chip bags than in the past month of MLD!!! And and and... The top of her left foot is ~finally~ softening! I know, it's a lot of exclamation points, but, damn! I'm excited. Her left foot has always been more swollen on the top/sides than the right, with the right having much more severe swelling in the toes. Well. The fluid can't leave the foot til it softens up... so we may start to see reduction in the size of her left foot. So exciting!!

On another note...The piggies, as J calls 'em, on the right. We've started kinesio-taping her toes. Yea, her toes. The tiniest pieces of tape you ever saw, with four on each toe since the toes drain to the sides then out into the foot. Tedious? Yes! Working? Yes. With the progress we've been making in her feet, some of the fluid was pushing into her toes, actually from the heavily swollen lower joint in her toes to the tops of them. A week of taping and the fluid is mostly back out of the ends of her toes again.

All in all an EXCELLENT therapy day. I'm a happy lymphmama.