Girl Scout Cookies are Here!!

It's that time of year again, time for the cookie sales. Madalyn worked very hard on her email tonight and sent to many of our friends and family. It's really funny to hear things from her perspective and the way that she words things. I had to laugh at several points and then let her send it any way. We were very entertained by her cookie photo shoot tonight, she has lots of fun ideas. Cookies are $3.50 a box, and I deliver, so if you're interested shoot her an email at madalynraymond@gmail.com - she earned a computer patch from her efforts last year.

On a side note, we wanted Madalyn to be in scouts for enrichment and for her to learn some leadership, teamwork and other skills that are hard to teach on our own. The funny thing is Scouts turned out to be more than that. Madalyn really wanted to go to camp last year- Miss Independent always- and the Scouts require a physical to attend. Madalyn hadn't been back to the pediatrician since her 5-year well check because it wasn't required (no shots, etc.) so we had been when she was sick, which had been once. When we took her for the camp physical our pedi noticed that her left rib cage was slightly higher than the right when she bent over to touch her toes. She signed the forms for camp and told us to come back in 6 months, so we did. They took x-rays, measurements, and so on and concluded that Madalyn has scoliosis. We went to an orthopedic specialist last week who confirmed the disagnosis and confirmed its severity. She's being fitted for a night brace tomorrow with an orthotist, but the good news is that she'll only have to wear the brace at night. She doesn't have to change any of her current activities and any physical activities actually help her condition. She has a 22 degree curve in her L3 vertebrae which we hope the brace will keep from getting any worse. We'll go back to the specialist every 6 months and really have to watch it when she hits her growth spurt during puberty - like we weren't already dreading that enough!! So, who knew that the Girl Scouts would have such a huge impact on our daughter? Needless to say, we are very grateful to have caught this when we did, and its all thanks to camp.