One of my Spina Bifida friends posted this chart of what part of your spinal controls what part of your body. I thought it would be a good time to explain why we feel that Cole situation is so special. Cole's legion is T10, which means everything below T10 when he was born without the fetal surgery, would most likely be damaged and not work. With the surgery that we had done, we were told that it would likely lower the damage to L1. Which we were very excited about and felt the surgery was well worth it. So far Cole has show great movement in his lower body. When people ask us if the surgery worked, it's a tricky answer. Yes it closed his back. Yes he has movement that we were not planning on, but hoped for. Yes his ventrals have not grown, so he has not needed a shunt. It will take time to know how well his body really works, but our family feels we have been blessed. The surgery couldn't have gone better in our eyes. We feel blessed that we qualified for it. The Lord has truly been with us this whole time.
Here is the chart and a picture of Cole's back.
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